‘The Body’ review: sex, death and Catholic guilt in haunted ‘Spring Breakers’

The Body really shouldn’t work quite as well as it does. The setup is an absolute slam drunk of slasher genre clichés. Full of hollow, hypersexualised teens at a mixed sex Catholic school who banter “do you spit or swallow?” before receiving their Holy Communion bread and wear ‘Jesus Saves, I Spend’ slogan t-shirts, we find them getting ready for a Halloween party at an abandoned convent known as the Devil’s House. Gee, I wonder what will happen?

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But the Netflix series does what it does rather brilliantly. Yes, there are a pair of creepy twins. Yes, there are unexplained nose bleeds. But while it plays into convention, it also steers away from expectation with intriguing grace. Even the scenes of ‘shocking’ behaviour (crushing up coke with a credit card on a copy of Catholic Theology, performing cunnilingus in the back of a car) never feel hokey or clichéd.

With electric dialogue and interpersonal relationships that toggle between mean and meaningful, it’s a more realistic portrait of millennial adolescence than Mike Flanagan’s Carrie. Possibly because The Body‘s masterful creator-writer-director Quinn Shephard is only 31 herself.

With a soundtrack featuring ska-free era No Doubt, Ciara, DMX and Kelly Clarkson, alongside lads frolicking around the school corridors with George W. Bush masks on, The Body is so 2004, it’ll have some viewers recall Gossip Girl. They both share the intrigue, camp, melodrama of Les Liaison Dangereuses and a wicked sense of humour.

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The interplay of piousness and partying is done subtly, giving layers to these horny youths. And it’s no mean feat to portray a teen walking through gay longing and godliness with this much subtlety. There’s also a vitality to the plotting and editing, while the creators gently drip feed us links to Catholicism’s storied horror past (The Exorcist, The Omen to name but two) from the first episode. The school is framed as insular and suffocating from the off.

There are lots of stand-out performances here too. Kristina Bogic gives the complicated mean girl Anya depth, while Geena Meszaros’ Lisbeth (home-schooled, without a family computer) brings a ghostly, othering presence to the screen from the moment she appears on it. Body-shamed at the cheerleader tryouts she is immediately contrasted with ‘popular girl who just gets it’ Grace (an excellent Sofia Wylie).

By the time we get to the dreaded party, the fireside, lighting and the slightly “off” costumes call to mind Yellowjackets. And we all know how that goes. The Body is excellent fun, sharply plotted and executed. It’s a haunted baby Spring Breakers that earmarks Quinn as one to watch.