Bodies Bodies Bodies

So a group of fairly unlikeable, spoiled, rich kids gather at the home of one of their number ahead of an impending hurricane. As conditions turn particularly nasty outside (think "Devil Wears Prada"), they decide to play an hybrid game of "Cleudo" meets "Ten Little Indians" that involves someone being given a piece of paper with a cross on it. That person has to "kill" one of their entirely deserving friends. Thereafter, they all reconvene to deduce who the killer is and if they get it wrong, then off they go again... Things take a turn for the worst when, infused with cocaine and booze, they start to fall out and their host "David" (the panda-impersonator Pete Davidson) strops off, the power goes down and next thing he is found quite literally bouncing off the patio doors with his throat slit. Whodunit? What now ensues is a messy, expletive-ridden character study of half a dozen women who are all too readily suspicious of each other. Two of them are lovers, with a third on the periphery of that very new relationship and another has brought her rather curious boyfriend along. The seeds are sown for a sea of discord right from the get-go. At times, the dialogue is really quite good fun, delivering quite an abrasively effective analysis of these fairly stupid and odious youngsters and playing well on their vacuousness and mistrust. All to often, though, the language becomes almost puerile. A good old dose of Anglo-Saxon can work, but when repeated as often as it is here, it loses any real potency. Indeed here, it borders on the hysterical - but not in an any way menacing manner. The acting, well that's another story. It's terrible. Quite simply, nobody here ought to worry about being troubled by any juries during awards season. That's a shame, because just a little more discerning effort on the casting front could really have lifted this, especially as the ending is really quite amusing. At times the production design offers us quite a claustrophobic environment, helped along nicely by the prevailing weather conditions - but sadly, that can't excuse the mediocrity of the talent delivering here, and I left the cinema unimpressed.