If you throw Y2K teen classics, religious dramas, and erotic thrillers into a blender — and add a bit of edgy, supernatural spice — you’ll put together something with the taste of Quinn Shephard’s 8-episode Netflix drama The Body. The result is indulgent and creates a unique atmosphere in an otherwise familiar space, but whether that makes for fantastic television is the real question. Here’s our review.
Scroll through Netflix’s socials in recent weeks, and you’d immediately think Quinn Shephard’s drama The Body is among the streamer’s biggest releases of the year. It’s no doubt struck a chord with the marketing team, perhaps for its wide-ranging appeal to nostalgia-filled millennials, fans of psychological horror, and people who love dark and edgy storytelling. Shephard herself grew up in such an era, and she’s written and starred in her share of high-school dramas, most notably Blame (2018). In The Body, she ties her myriad experiences together with a biblical bow.
From the moment you press ‘play’ on coming-of-age psychological-supernatural drama The Body, you’re transported back into 2004; an era dominated by flip phones and teen dramas, not least the big-screen cultural zeitgeist Mean Girls. However, while Shephard’s The Body clearly channels that same vibe of cliquey high-schoolers, gossip, and tribalism, the series flips the atmosphere to a dance troupe within a private, uniform-wearing Catholic school. Rather than focusing on social hierarchy and ‘Burn Book’ pettiness, it is fuelled by the supernatural, as the troupe of tribal girls get caught up in matters of biblical proportions.
The series not only takes us back to 2004, but sets the scene during Halloween, when high-school parties are rife and teens tend to be at their most highly strung and rebellious. We follow Anya (Kristina Bogic), Elise Zakaria (Sara Boustany), Maddie Delaney (Shirley Chen), Lisbeth Anderson (Geena Meszaros), and — perhaps most importantly — Grace Franklin (Sofia Wylie). After trying out for their dance troupe and impressing, the girls invite Grace to their Halloween party, which is just about the most quintessential Y2K American teen party you can imagine. During the evening, they decide to perform a faux initiation ‘sacrifice’ ritual to formally bring Grace into the fold. However, after forcing her to take drugs, Grace later (seemingly) dies. The only witnesses to her collapse are Anya and Lisbeth, the latter being the ‘weird’ outcast who inexplicably appears after trying out for the dance troupe.
Upon witnessing Grace’s apparent death, Anya and Lisbeth (an unlikely duo to begin with) decide against alerting the authorities. Instead, they take her body back home in the back of a car, place her in bed and frame the scene that she passed away in the night. However, we later learn that Grace did not die; the morning reveals that she still lives, but is stuck in a coma.
As Grace exists in a state of limbo, the group of girls starts to believe that their sacrificial ritual that took Grace may have manifested by mistake. This forms a sense of hysteria among them. The group-think and frenzy ultimately cause all of them to see visions of Grace. And with them attending a Catholic school, these visions are given biblical meaning, which poses the show’s ultimate overarching question: are the visions of Grace supernatural or psychological?
The answer to that question delves too far into spoiler territory. Across the full 8 episodes, the show conceals what’s really going on, and showrunner Quinn Shephard does a stellar job at exploring and balancing psychology and the supernatural: the consequences and implications of both instances are depicted.
The core story doesn’t rely on big action sequences or over-the-top chaos, and it never feels like it lacks either of them. This style of psychological and intimate horror is more than enough on its own, mainly because the atmosphere is so unnerving and ominous. The cinematography is dark and cold, while the choices of sound favour unnerving, biblical tones. It’s one of the finest TV portrayals of how hysteria, fear, groupthink, and rumor can spiral out of control.
The cast throughout put in solid performances. One of my big worries going into this show was whether the characters would feel too aligned to pre-existing archetypes, especially given how much showrunner Quinn Shephard has talked about inspirations, from Mean Girls and Carrie, to Heavenly Creatures and Jennifer’s Body. All of them feel fleshed out and real without turning into clichés. As expected from a young adult drama, there’s plenty of hormones flying around, and there’s more than a fair share of spicy scenes — including an ongoing queer plot line. Outside of the main group of teens, I was particularly impressed by Nnamdi Asomugha as Father Samuel Franklin, Grace’s father and the local priest. He’s a strong character, and serves as a grounded adult perspective on the supernatural events that occur.
My main issue with this show is a strange one: it’s a bit too long. The core storyline is stretched thin across 8 episodes, and the pacing often suffers as a result. Perhaps 6 episodes would’ve been more appropriate — I could even see this story working as a movie. Even so, if you become an ardent fan of the series and you’re particularly excited by the bait-and-switches, the episode count won’t be too much of an issue. This show is a marathon, not a sprint, and the ending has a satisfying payoff that’s absolutely worth waiting for.
MVP
Geena Meszaros as Lisbeth — Netflix subscribers may recall Meszaros from her role as Oatmeal Beth in Wayward — a series she really stood out in. However, The Body gives her a chance to explore a complex character on an even deeper level. Her role as Lisbeth in The Body is naturally demanding: she’s an outcast, but deceptive, unconventional, and a catalyst for much of the chaos that occurs.
Verdict
From the opening minutes, it’s clear that Shephard has poured years of extensive research and fascination into this series. She has said herself in previous interviews that she was inspired by Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible about the Salem witch trials, and it shows not only in a narrative sense, but in how scenes are presented: dark, gloomy, and ominous.
If there’s one thing we can absolutely commend this series for, it’s carving out a unique story by mashing together different genres and tropes. You can’t fault the creativity — and the execution is very solid.
