Jennifer

There are a lot of similarities between Carrie and Jennifer (over-religious single parent, school snobbery, pent up anger sparking supernatural revenge, and I guess even at one point toward the end having Jennifer looking remarkably similar to Margaret White at the end of Carrie). Jennifer's power involves control over snakes, whereas Carrie had control over practically everything.

Jennifer is played by Lisa Peliken, who is excellent in this. She gets a scholarship to a ritzy school, and her poor background and lack of wealth make her an easy target. She almost instantly gets on the bad side of the biggest clique in the school, led by Chris Hargensen-like Sandra. The special effects (especially a giant snake) are poor, but it is a fun, dated movie to watch.

This film is basically a rip off of Carrie, girl is bullied throughout the movie and then we get a climatic finish where strange powers are on full display. The problem with this trope is that you have to watch a lot of movie where the powers are not on display and there is filler to the extreme! Another movie that follows this formula is Evil Speak with Clint Howard, but that one was way creepier from what I remember. That being said, I was a kid when last I saw that movie so it may seem silly now. This one I liked the ending and aspects of it, but at times it just was a bit too far fetched.

The story has Jennifer, a nice young lady from rural country going to a private academy. Despite what is said, not all the girls dislike Jennifer, only this one senator's daughter and her clique. Her clique and the daughter are all flat chested, but hang around a girl they call fat, but to me had the best bod of the bunch as she had boobs and was not a zipper. The senator's daughter was not even all that, but she just had to taunt Jennifer and her chubby friend to a ridiculous degree so when the comeuppance occurs I was fully in Jennifer's corner.

Not sure what the deal with the school is as some of the girls seem to live there, but Jennifer lives with her father in a rundown looking pet store. I think the degree to which the head mistress protects the senator's daughter is a bit unrealistic too as sooner or later that girl was going to do something that would have brought down the academy's reputation...not sure there is any private school where the girls can just drive off with a couple of guys and go to a disco and do drugs...

So, the film had its moments and the climax was pretty cool as Jennifer displayed her powers which was not just controlling snakes, but materializing them out of thin air! However, there is so much filler, like watching the mean girls dance at a disco, Jennifer no where to be seen. I guess they did okay as this film was obviously a rush job to capitalize on the success of Carrie.

I only saw the last half-hour of this film. I have been looking all over the four corners of the earth and finally found it available for order on the internet. When I see the whole thing, I'll make additional comments. I'm tired of maudlin films with reprehensible characters who get killed or suffer misfortune, only to have the other characters weeping or remorseful over the misfortune that character deserved to get. But that's not the case with Jennifer. It is uncompromising and doesn't pull any punches when exacting revenge on many of the film's vicious characters. Some of you have criticized the effects, but be understanding that without today's digital and computer effects, they were limited in what they could do. A good effort, with some reasonably well-known stars adding spice to the film.

Anyone who knows anything about horror will have no trouble identifying Jennifer's main influence - it is, of course, Brian De Palma's Stephen King adaptation Carrie. The two share so much in common that I can't quite believe that director Brice Mack actually got away with making this film. It's not just the central premise either, things are ripped directly from Carrie wholesale; stuff like the overbearing religious single parent, the popular clique that takes a dislike to the outcast protagonist and the sensitive member of said clique that has a bit of sympathy for the outcast. The central character is, unsurprisingly, named Jennifer. Jennifer is a scholarship student at a relatively wealthy school and as such gets picked on for not having as much money as the other girls. She takes it for a while but soon the bullying is stepped up a gear and Jennifer decides that she just can't take it anymore. Luckily for her, however, she can wield a strange power over snakes and decides to use it to get her revenge.

While the film is clearly a knockoff, it does have to be said that in its own right, it's actually a decent horror movie. Don't go into it expecting to be thrilled because it's very much of the slow burn variety, although it does manage to put forward some interesting characters. It's clear that it was shot on a low budget, however, and while the acting is largely decent; certain cast members are just terrible. Jeff Corey stands out in that respect as Jennifer's overbearing religious father. The central premise centres on snakes and as such you would expect the movie to feature a few of them; but actually they don't turn up properly until right near the end which is a bit of a shame. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of a relationship between the lead character and the snakes. Jennifer is also not even nearly as big an outcast as Carrie was; she's just not weird enough and her reaction to the bullying even seems a bit extreme. Still, I wasn't particularly expecting anything great from this film and going in with expectations like that will ensure you wont be disappointed.

Surprisingly effective little low budget shocker here that proves once again that just because a horror movie from the 1970s has a PG rating that doesn't mean it's for kids. This one has some genuinely sick material though not in the department that one might think even with the unexpected brief nudity. It's a Snake Horror ripoff of CARRIE for sure but there's something else going on here. And proof yet again that the key element to any good movie is the writing, not the budget or the stars, unless you consider Bert Convey a star. That must be him singing the opening theme song, and its just so awful you have to love it.

So CARRIE was about a misunderstood waif pushed to the edge by a bunch of stuck-up bored rich kids who torment her at school. JENNIFER is about a plucky young lady from the country who runs afoul of a boarding school's resident teenage psychopath convincingly played by Amy Johnston who literally has the whole world struck dumb by her. She's put the whammy on everyone at the private school the film is set at. Her classmates, her teachers, her boyfriend and his pack of loser buddies (one of which is former "Land Of The Lost" actor Wesley Ure, showing that he really could act after all), the pill-popping boozer headmistress, even the people who despise her hold her in a certain amount of awe. Including John Gavin playing her senator father whom I suspect knows that her daughter is completely psychotic and doesn't give half a damn.

The Snake Horror stuff -- while good enough, given the budget and PG ratings prohibition against overtly sexualized content -- takes second seat to what is actually a pretty good rendition of how a charming psychopath can insinuate themselves so well into the lives of their victims that dislodging them becomes traumatic in itself. The most horrifying scene in the film is when the maniac sets up one of her flunkie so-called friends to be date raped by her equally sociopathic boyfriend. The damndest thing is, I've heard of worse in real life. By keeping its psycho horrors in check the film is all the more frightening. Other than the snakes you could really see some of this happening, suggesting that maybe what we're seeing here were two scripts combined into one: A story about a young lady with a gift for controlling reptiles, and another about a psychopathic Barely Legal who eventually destroys the lives of everyone she comes in contact with. The latter story steals the show.

So yeah, the young lady with the past as a snake handling tongue speaking miracle girl does indeed unleash hell's fury in an amusing display of serpentine pyrotechnics that includes a couple of great ironic justice payback deaths for her tormentors. But to me the real story is about this pretty young psycho and the lengths that she will go to perpetuate the almost hypnotic hold she seems to have on her followers. Kind of makes you wonder about all those bullies and demented weirdos you used to run afoul of yourself as a younger person. I knew they were crazy all along. Nobody can be that cruel & still have a conscience. Here's a movie that shows how it works -- the Snake Horror stuff is just gravy.

6/10