Megan Fox, a diabolic indie rock band, toxic friendship, fluid sexuality, feminist reckoning, and a literal man-eater in the body of a high school cheerleader: Jennifer’s Body has it all

Featuring an original interview with director Karyn Kusama

What would be an easy sell in 2021 — women at the helm (screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Karyn Kusama), a bankable cast (Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried), and a deceptively complex skewering of gender politics — was a box office flop in 2009. In Extra Salty, Frederick Blichert flips the script on how Jennifer’s Body was labeled a failure to celebrate all that is scrumptious (as Jennifer would say) about it: supernatural horror, dark comedy, queer love, and a nuanced handling of gendered violence. The movie could have been to the aughts what Heathers was to the eighties, and it’s finally getting its due — whether in the flood of tenth-anniversary praise, the parade of Jennifer Halloween costumes, or Halsey’s nod to it (“Killing Boys”) on her platinum-selling album.

With insight into the genre’s cinematic tropes, our current cultural reckoning with misogyny, and an original interview with director Karyn Kusama, Extra Salty solidifies the status of Jennifer’s Body as a cult classic.

Sales and Market Bullets

• Blichert’s writing has appeared in VICE, Paste Magazine, Xtra, Senses of Cinema, The Tyee, and more.
• Features an original interview with Karyn Kusama, director of Jennifer’s Body.
• While Jennifer’s Body was considered a failure at the box office, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the film is receiving appreciation as a feminist horror film and is being reclaimed by the internet and critics alike.
• The New York Times included Jennifer’s Body on a list of great horror movies directed by women, and if Jennifer’s Body came out today, it would be taught in cinema studies, film theory, and women’s studies.

Audience

• Fans of “Bechdel Tested” movie trend
• Pop culture buffs
• Readers of Vulture, Vox, Paste, The Cut
• Women 25+
• Readers of Bitch, Bust, and online feminist publications
• Fans of Halsey