Ok, you’ve just won an Oscar for best screenplay for the sweet comedy Juno. What do you do next? Well, Diablo Cody put pen to paper (or more likely, fingers to keyboard, considering the space age in which we now live) and came up with Jennifer’s Body. The result of which is a bit of a shocker.

Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) have been best friends forever. Even now in high school, with Jennifer being Miss Popular and Needy being Miss Not-Very-Popular-At-All, they are still BFFs – Best Friends Forever.

When super-cool band Low Shoulder turn up from the big bad city to play in their little town, Jennifer persuades Needy that they really have to go. It’s a hot gig, particularly when the venue catches fire and many of those inside are done to overdone. Still, the band, Jennifer and Needy all manage to escape unharmed.

Seriously, why did you think putting our red towel in a whites only wash would be a good idea?

Not one for grieving, Jennifer jumps in the band’s van without Needy, looking for a ride or two of her own. She gets more than she bargains for though when the band decides that they want to offer her to the devil as a human sacrifice. He has an appetite for virgins, apparently – one slight problem though, Jennifer isn’t one. Because of this she doesn’t die; instead she becomes a crazed man-eater – literally.

Now if anything is going to test a friendship, it’s having your bestest friend turn into a man-eating demon.

To some degree, Cody has to be applauded for not simply writing another Juno-type film. Jennifer’s Body is a completely different beast altogether. In fact, it’s more Carrie than Juno. There is one thing they do both have in common though, and that’s strong female leads.

Cody proves again that she can write sharp and witty dialogue, but this time she adds sassy to her repertoire. There are some great throwaway lines here, some of which are sadly buried in the nonsense that is the plot. If there is a chink in her Oscar-enforced armour, it’s the weak storyline. There’s no denying that it’s fun, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Very little is made of how exactly Jennifer becomes a demon, and more importantly, why. It appears to be on the whim of a touring band who also like to dabble with the occult. The reason why Jennifer devours only men is also on the woolly side. More often than not, these questions would seem redundant for this type of film; however, it’s likely to come under more scrutiny when its writer has a shiny Oscar under her arm.

The film won’t do any harm for either of the two female leads though. Seyfried puts in a particularly strong performance as the regular student, whose character goes through just as startling a transformation as Fox’s does. Fox herself does well with pushing the edginess of Jennifer, but it’s not career-defining stuff by any means.

Jennifer’s Body is mainly let down by its inability to shock. There is nothing graphic regarding the way Jennifer takes out her victims. At times it feels like a crossover between The Vampire Diaries meets 90210, without the kind of dramatic impact you’d expect from a big screen experience. When it comes to blood and guts for a horror film, more is more.

Still, as it stands, there’s enough here to entertain, mainly thanks to some sharp and cocksure dialogue. If you’re looking for a hardcore horror experience however, this sadly doesn’t make the cut.