It's her post-Oscar comic-teen fright flick

"But horror is a surprisingly feminist genre," Cody said. "The last person standing is usually a woman. And most of the guys in this movie are vain and insecure. You'll notice there are no fathers in this movie. I didn't want there to be any male role models -- I didn't feel these were girls who were loved by their fathers."

memoiristDirector Kusama, who read "Jennifer's Body" before she had seen "Juno" or heard of Cody, said the script reminded her of a Grimm fairy tale. "What's really special about it is the emotional underpinning of the story, and the idea that your parents cannot protect you," Kusama said.

As she bobbed in the pool wearing a black-and-white prom dress (of course, there's a prom scene -- it's a horror movie after all), the 22-year-old Fox said she knows girls like Jennifer all too well. "I was the Jennifer of my school -- the troublemaker, the anarchist," Fox said. "She has an appetite for destruction."

It's because of people like Jennifer, Fox said, "that I don't have any girlfriends. Because they always want what every other woman has. There's no loyalty among women." Still, Fox said, her character isn't pure evil.

"I hope that people feel sorry for her," she said. "She's a victim before she's a predator."

--

john.horn@latimes.com