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Jennifer 8: it’s crappy 90s thriller film time!

27 February, 2016 — by Christopher and Toni0

Following on from Body of Evidence last week, for tonight’s Saturday Night film club, me and my wife Toni (Methods Unsound’s badass Food Editor) sat down to watch the moody 1992 thriller Jennifer 8 because Netflix told us to and we couldn’t be bothered arguing.

jennifer-8 andy garcia and uma thurman

If you didn’t read last week’s introduction for fear of having to stare at Madonna’s giant pants for too long, here’s a quick breakdown of why we’re doing this: we love 90s Hollywood thrillers, especially the ones that are high on gloss, shlock and exploitation, like Basic Instinct, Color of Night, Fear, Single White Female or The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. So we’re attempting to find the perfect one.

In order to do this we’ve devised an 18 point checklist, which we’ll use to score each entrant:

CRAPPY 90S THRILLER CHECKLIST

  • – A plot driven by a murder-mystery
  • – ‘Erotic’ sex involving some taboo element that hasn’t previously been exploited in another Hollywood film
  • – A thick layer of Hollywood gloss
  • – Hammy acting
  • – Competent direction borrowing liberally from Hitchcock
  • – Sensationalist dialogue
  • – Lots of pseudo-psychology
  • – Heavy-handed symbolism
  • – Ridiculous houses that nobody in the real world can afford to live in
  • – Ridiculous jobs that nobody in the real-world actually has (normally freelance architect, I mean I know there are obviously architects in the real world but every fucker in these films is either an architect, a surgeon or a lawyer. How many architects, surgeons or lawyers do you know?)
  • – Shockingly irresponsible police work
  • – Loads of rain
  • – Sweeping orchestral scores, maybe with a little too much saxophone on the side
  • – Forgotten character actors you’ll just about remember (Anne Archer? George Dzunda?)
  • – Andy Garcia
  • – Gigantic plot-holes so obvious you’ll notice straight away
  • – A third-act twist, normally followed by a secondary last-minute twist
  • – End credits rolling IMMEDIATELY after the villain is killed

Let’s see how the video-store mainstay Jennifer 8 holds up. A film that always looked like a perfectly adequate rental, but would always be left on the shelf because how could it possibly compete with Universal Soldier?

Jennifer 8

jennifer 8 poster

Jennifer 8 sees Andy Garcia’s smouldering LA cop John Berlin who, on the cusp of burn-out, is transferred to a rural snowy part of California where he buddies up with the nice milk-filled robot from Aliens (Lance Henriksen) and tries to solve a series of murders where all the victims are blind women. Uma Thurman plays a blind music student called Helena, whose roommate was the killer’s 8th victim, and who begins a romantic relationship with Garcia. Then follows 125 minutes of miserable, sludgy police-procedural mixed with unlikely romance and Lance Henriksen calling somebody “bro” every three minutes. John Malkovich also pops up to steal a handful of scenes as a cold-riddled FBI agent, who has a real boner for Garcia. But hey, don’t we all?

jennifer 8 garcia and malkovich

Is it any good? Well, that’s not really the purpose of this exercise, as none of these films are technically ‘good’, but perhaps it might fit the criteria of crappy 90s thriller excellence (i.e. tonnes of guilty fun)?

A plot driven by a murder-mystery?

We should leave this question out, as, yes… duh, it’s a murder-mystery. Although what is perhaps most noticeably different about Jennifer 8 is the lack of actual murder in it. At the beginning, Garcia finds the eighth victim’s hand covered in noodles in a garbage dump, but this is the only grisly part of the film. Little attention is paid to the killer’s previous victims and no other victims are despatched. And although there’s a scary bit where Uma Thurman takes a bath while a home invader takes photos of her, as soon as she realises he’s there, he runs away, There’s very little threat or danger

‘Erotic’ sex involving some taboo element that hasn’t previously been exploited in another Hollywood film?

It’s a disappointingly chaste film. Yeah Garcia and Thurman probably have sex, but it’s off camera and therefore we have no idea whether Uma Thurman makes Garcia dress up as Bilbo Baggins or whether Garcia can only maintain an erection while there are puppets in the room.

A thick layer of Hollywood gloss?

No. It’s really grimy, you feel like you need a hosing down afterwards.

jennifer 8 andy garcia with an umbrella

Hammy acting?

When not being quietly enigmatic, Andy Garcia is angry. And when Andy Garcia gets angry he gets really good at his Al Pacino impression. It’s uncanny.

Competent direction borrowing liberally from Hitchcock?

It has a generally murky tone that makes it difficult to pay attention to. Plus the running time doesn’t help. It’s kinda boring. And a bit depressing.

Sensationalist dialogue?

Lance Henriksen has the best lines: “No way. I’m not going back [to the dump]. You might find someone’s prick in a hot dog roll.” But most of the time, the dialogue sounds like it’s clever but doesn’t really make super amounts of sense: “You really are the working part of the asshole, Berlin.”

Lots of pseudo-psychology?

Garcia hazards a fairly implausible excuse for the killer’s predilection for murdering blind girls, which is entirely logical in the context of the film, but that’s about it.

Heavy-handed symbolism?

Nah.

Ridiculous houses that nobody in the real world can afford to live in?

Nah. Everyone lives in a shithole.

Ridiculous jobs that nobody in the real-world actually has?

Cello student? Does that count? No female actor who plays a musician in a film is allowed to master anything other than a cello.

jennifer 8 uma thurman plays a cello

Shockingly irresponsible police work?

It all seems relatively above board until a decision that Garcia makes, which is meant to protect Henriksen, winds up getting his partner shot in the neck. Stellar policing, Garcia!

Loads of rain?

No. Lots of snow though. Half a point.

Sweeping orchestral scores, maybe with a little too much saxophone on the side?

Run-of-the-mill plinky-plonky piano score that you don’t really notice, but when you do it begins to annoy you.

Forgotten character actors you’ll just about remember?

Graham Becker, who plays Sgt. Taylor, was in C.H.U.D. (That’s Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller, to you and me).

graham bleckel CHUD

Andy Garcia?

If there’s one thing this movie has in spades, it’s Andy Garcia.

Probably too much

Gigantic plot-holes so obvious you’ll notice straight away?

[Spoiler] There’s a pervy janitor who it turns out – in a not very shocking twist that’s only revealed to the audience – is the one who’s been taking photos of Uma Thurman. But… he’s not the killer. This is fine, until after the credits have rolled you realise that the pervy janitor is still on the prowl and probably still hanging out in Thurman’s bathroom.

A third-act twist, normally followed by a secondary last-minute twist?

Yes. And yes! Phew, things were looking bad for Jennifer 8 there.

End credits rolling IMMEDIATELY after the villain is killed?

After the final bullet is discharged into the serial killer, there are perhaps two lines of dialogue before the end credits roll. I love 90s movies. There were no lengthy explanations, no standing on ceremony, no medals given, no tying up of loose ends, no mopping up, nothing.

FINAL SCORE

On the ‘crappy 90s thriller’ checklist, Jennifer 8 scores a mediocre 10.5/18. It’s far from a bad film, there’s just little to really recommend it and a lot of its running time is kind of a drag.

24 years later, I still feel like we could have spent our time better watching Universal Soldier.

For more in-depth and slightly wayward film analysis, check out our movie features section including What if Star Wars The Force Awakens is a big pile of shit?

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Jennifer 8: it's crappy 90s thriller film time!
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Jennifer 8: it's crappy 90s thriller film time!
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Let's see how the video-store mainstay Jennifer 8 holds up. A film that would always be left on the shelf because it couldn't compete with Universal Soldier
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