'Bodies Bodies Bodies': The Official Influences Behind A24's Gen Z Horror

In an isolated mansion, a group of mates on holiday decide to play a game. Things go wrong, relationships are tested, and naturally, people start dying. The English-language debut from Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, Bodies Bodies Bodies stars a rogues gallery of millennial and gen Z performers (including Amandla Stenberg, Pete Davidson, and Shiva Baby’s Rachel Sennott), cluing you into the target of the film’s satirical eye. Merciless and insightful in its exploration of youthful narcissism, Bodies is a gripping, uproarious horror-comedy with an ingenious twist we won’t spoil.

Reijn, who started her career as an actress, made her feature directorial debut in 2019 with Instinct, the Dutch submission to the Oscar’s Best Foreign Language Film category that year. With Bodies cementing her Hollywood bona fides, we asked Reijn to talk us through the films that inspired her.

Halina Reijin: It is horror – but funny and wild. Winona Ryder has been my hero since I was young.

Deeper into Movies: This macabre 80s comedy has been endlessly referenced, parodied, and reworked – anyone seen the musical? – but the original is absolutely top tier in the high-school genre. Anchored by phenomenal performances from Ryder and Christian Slater (shamelessly impersonating Jack Nicholson), Heathers’ fingerprints can be found on everything from Mean Girls to Ginger Snaps. Acerbic and sublime, Heathers is that rare film worthy of being called iconic. 

Reijin: A wonderful, very hard to get your hands on film about young people, with Leonardo DiCaprio as the star. The actors just sit around and talk. Highly entertaining – a beautifully organic way of speaking and communicating.

Deeper: Don’s Plum has acquired a degree of infamy since its release, owing to DiCaprio and his co-star Tobey Maguire’s interference with the film’s release. The pair claim that they only signed on to do a short – not a feature film. The extensive improvised dialogue that makes up most of the end product, which centers on a group of young Angelenos talking shit in a diner, was rumoured to be too revealing of Maguire’s real personality. To date, DiCaprio has continued to use his Hollywood sway to block an official release. 

Reijin: When I was a stage actress working with Ivo van Hove, we used to make theatre versions of his films. A Woman Under the Influence is my favourite. I named my company after that film.

The acting and tone of his work is so primal, real, fearless and vulnerable. People think everything is improvised within the Cassavetes universe, because it looks so authentic and easy, but that wasn't the case at all. It was all scripted. He would give his actors specific moments to go off book. I asked my cast to watch his films and told them we would work in a similar way. Watching his work is an absolute masterclass in acting and film making.

Deeper: Many have tried, but nobody did it quite like Cassavetes and his troupe. We second the recommendation for A Woman Under the Influence, but Opening Night, Husbands, and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie are all fixtures in our pantheon of greats.

Reijin: This is my favorite play, and the film is a masterpiece – it all takes place on one location. The performances are animalistic, comedic, wild and at the same time. It’s truly acting by experienced, classically trained actors on the highest level. No ego, no vanity, just honesty.

Deeper: An excruciating exercise in escalating discomfort, Who’s Afraid follows an alcoholic couple played by real-life gin-soaked twosome Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who exact a curious form of emotional torture on a younger couple. Probing the psychology of middle class, intellectual ennui, Nichols captured something raw and terrifying. The zenith of stage-to-screen adaptations.

Reijin: If you want to know about acting or directing as inspiration for any work of art or on a personal level, I recommend watching this film. I would wear a T-shirt with Isabelle Huppert’s name on it just to pay tribute to her on set, and try to channel her energy at all times.

Deeper: Huppert, arguably the greatest actor of all time, allies with Haneke, the icy, exacting auteur behind films like Cache and Funnny Games. The result is an enthralling study of sexual pathology and power. The tone, which treads a careful line between arthouse restraint and full-fledged camp fireworks, is a tightrope act navigated seamlessly by the director and his star. An ending you’ll never forget. 

Reijin: My favorite horror film. The scene in Bodies on the basketball court inside the house – when the girls commit their first act of violence and the movie shifts in tone – is inspired by this film.

Deeper: Although largely associated with black-and-white photography, Bergman’s use of highly-saturated crimson in the production design of Cries and Whispers creates a distinctly human feeling, connoting everything from death to passion. Set in the late 19th century, Cries follows three sisters, Maria, Karin, and Agnes, as they deal with Agnes’ terminal illness. The red rooms become a backdrop for the trio (and Agnes’ loyal servant Anna) to unpack their pain. As beautiful as it is bleak.

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies is in cinemas now.