Bodies Bodies Bodies, the latest contribution to A24’s horror canon, has a lot to say about society as a whole. Of course, if you have an audience, ranting may be quite therapeutic. Flashy whodunit thriller that traps its tight circle of friends in a maze of anxiety, and one of the participants plays the spectator – at least for a moment – in filmmaker Halina Reijn’s second feature film. Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova talked to Discussing Film about how she prepared for her part as Bee, the wide-eyed outsider who isn’t welcome.
Without giving anything away, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and her new lover Bee are reunited with some of her old pals in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Sophie wasn’t in on the plan, but her friends were going to gather at the home where David (Pete Davidson) grew up and party all night as the hurricane passed by. The tension is apparent when Sophie and Bee arrive up uninvited, especially between Sophie and her ex-girlfriend Jordan (Myha’la Herrold). Right away, Bakalova’s persona stands apart from the rest of the gang. Sophie has brought Bee along with all of her other stuff, and she isn’t the only newbie; Lee Pace, who portrays Greg, Alice’s (Rachel Sennott) older lover, is also joining the cast. The film follows Bakalova as she faces two distinct sorts of terror. There’s tension between them from the beginning, and poor Bee is too timid to speak up for fear of further alienating her new acquaintances.
Their game of “bodies, bodies, bodies” quickly turns lethal, adding to the stress of trying to fit in with her girlfriend’s pals. A murderer lurks around every corner of the movie’s huge estate, which Bakalova says “started feeling a bit eerie” as the film progressed. The night progresses and the players show their real colours, focusing their growing animosity on the new female as the tension rises.
Bakalova says in her discussion of the film, “Discussing Film,” “I’ve been afraid for weeks after watching some of those A24 horror movies, which are aesthetically stunning and fantastic. Therefore, I haven’t been a huge horror buff, but I do respect it. And now, especially [with Bodies Bodies Bodies], since, you know, the performers in these movies have been through a lot, what with all the blood and other liquids being hurled at them.”
Even though Bakalova received the first-ever Academy Award nomination for a Bulgarian actress for her role in the comedy Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, the bawdy humour of the title film, Bodies Bodies Bodies, is a long cry from that. Bee has worked with comedy heavyweights such as Sacha Baron Cohen and Judd Apatow (The Bubble), but in this role, she is fumbling in the dark, crawling through narrow passageways, covered in blood, and playing a game of life or death.
Because she had “…always been terrified of scary movies,” Bakalova had to put in a lot of extra effort to make the change. The actress naturally named certain A24 staples like Ari Aster’s Midsommar and Hereditary, as well as films like It Follows and Scream that have a group of pals being murdered one by one. Based on her performance in the film, we can safely state that Bakalova’s efforts to “prepare and challenge” herself were well worth it for her new part. Throughout the course of the film, Bakalova expertly assumes the role of various horror cliches embodied by Bee. She, along with the rest of the amazing ensemble, manages to maintain suspense right up to the end of the movie.
You can see Bodies Bodies Bodies now in cinemas.