Entry Six: Jennifer (1978)

Jennifer (AKA Jennifer, the Snake Goddess-1978)

Dir: Brice Mack

" She walks in terror, stilled with fright. A trail of fear, to fill the night!"

Jennifer Baylor (Lisa Pelikan) is a poor girl on scholarship to a prestigious all-girls collegiate academy.  She manages to raise the ire of Sandra (Amy Johnston), leader of the "cool girl" clique (whose father, of course, is a senator who's contributed thousands of dollars to the school).  After Sandra orchestrates several hurtful and humiliating events (including and egged locker, an attempted drowning, nude photos and the lynching of her pet cat), Jennifer calls upon her innate psychic power over snakes, gifted to her by her religious-zealot father (Jeff Corey) to exact violent revenge!

This is a film I first discovered thanks to its regular rotation on the late-night circuit of my local channels in the late 80s/early 90s...Good fuck, do I miss those days!  I'll get this out of the way first: yes, this is an obvious cash-in on DePalma's adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie (1976), but I actually like Jennifer better.  Not only does it lack the (sometimes uncomfortable) soft-core voyeurism of DePalma's picture, it also creates a world populated by a more relateable heroine and more three-dimensional villains.  While Sissy Spacek's Carrie White was never anything more than pitiable, Pelikan's Jennifer is likeable, resourceful and level-headed; you actually want to see her triumph over her oppressors and go on to live a normal life.  When "bad girl" Jane (MN native Louise Hoven) decides to dissent against Sandra's increasingly-brutal actions against Jennifer, Sandra has her boyfriend rape Jane in an elevator as a warning.  The long-distance phone call that Jane makes to her mother directly after, during which her mother refuses to believe her daughter's claims and asks her to not bother her again, is the most heartbreaking scene in the film.  It's a bold move for a film of this sort to portray (even one of) it's villains as just as damaged and pitiable as it's victim.

I should also point out that this film features a FUCKING FANTASTIC disco scene!  The fashions alone made me extremely envious: shiny jackets! Big-collared shirts!  Red-tinted sunglasses!  Righteous vests!  I wish my closet looked like this!