Kiss All Your Girlfriends: A Critical Comparison of Carmilla and Jennifer's Body

“Jennifer’s gotta be a vampire,” my friend said as we watched the critical flop Jennifer’s Body one summer night. I wanted to laugh and wait for the film to prove her wrong when, to my dismay, I realized she made a compelling point. Jennifer Check’s succubus qualities didn’t evoke anything necessarily vampire-esque, yet the manner in which her character was written rang familiar to the vampire canon. This film eerily mirrors the fictional life of Carmilla, the seductive vampiress who predates Dracula by three decades. J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body project a nearly identical story through their monsters’ complementary characteristics, the hyperfeminity and queerness of their villainesses, and the thematic “turning” of their virginal protagonists.

In folklore, there is a large dissonance between the Western succubus and vampire in act, intention, and background. Whereas the traditional vampire is an undead creature who must feast on the blood (and occasionally the flesh) of a living creature, the succubus is a demon who feeds through sexual activity. Kusama’s version of the succubus may need seduction to lure in their prey, but Jennifer must devour the flesh of her men rather than their spirit. Carmilla in turn does not hunt as Dracula or Lord Ruthven—meaning it is not fear from her victim that she looks for. When General Spielsdorf talks about Carmilla’s relationship with his deceased daughter, he says he “never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her heart to her” (Le Fanu 98). Laura too does not face the same psychological horror of Jonathan Harker or even Lucy Westenra. It is through a succubus-like seduction that Carmilla acquires her victims’ trust before the kill. Therefore Kusama’s succubi and Le Fanu’s vampire are joined at a devil’s crossroads. Both creatures were in uncharted territory during the creation of their story; for Carmilla, the haughty vampire novel had been done only once, and for Jennifer her version of the “succubus” was adjusted to fit into the dark comedy genre. When both women hunt, they are tapping into both succubus- and vampire-like traits not to fit their genre but to further the development of their character archetypes as seductresses.

Similarly, it is not only in supernatural abilities that Carmilla and Jennifer mirror each other as we see them share key traits important for the audience’s understanding of their narrative. Whether it is from genuine affection or hunger, both women perform a hyperfeminity meant to hint at their “dangerous” and uncanny nature. This is seen visually in the way they hold themselves. Carmilla is described with a complexion “rich and brilliant; her features were small and beautifully formed” and hair “so magnificently thick and long when it was down about her shoulders” (Le Fanu 33). In comparison, the actress playing Jennifer Check is tall, slender, and boasts shining dark hair that is styled down her back. The attractive brunette calls to the literary archetype of the smart, serious, and dangerous woman. This physicality further exemplifies the use of their femininity in their friendships with their blonde counterparts. Both Carmilla and Jennifer are physical in their affection whether it is when Carmilla lays “her cheek to [Laura’s], murmuring with her lips to her [Laura's] ear” (Le Fanu 35) or Jennifer sharing beds with Needy during sleepovers.

This type of physicality is embraced initially, but it equally leans into the uncanny as, with succubus-like intent from both parties, Jennifer and Carmilla experiment with pushing platonic boundaries. Their feminine apparel and dress should entice them to male peers, and yet both women are obsessed with their female friend. Due to the nature of Carmilla’s novel format, the audience is left to infer what Laura does and does not want to admit in her writing. Nevertheless, she tells the audience about her dream in which Camilla’s “warm lips kissed [her], longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached [her] throat, and there the caress fixed itself” (Le Fanu 69)— a surprisingly sensual scene for the time period in which Le Fanu wrote this work). Meanwhile Jennifer’s Body, a movie whose promotion centered around sensuality, shows Jennifer and Needy kissing languidly in a shared bed. What makes these acts uncanny for their audience is not just the sapphic attitudes these women present, but their inherent femininity. Carmilla and Jennifer are strictly “femme” presenting, and the women they seduce are heteronormative—they do not fit the butch-and-femme stereotype of early queer depictions. Without a masculine presence in their sapphic scenes, it means to both attract the heroines and the audience while unsettling them due to these women's nature.

It is not just Carmilla and Jennifer who resemble each other either in their respective pieces. Both Carmilla and Jennifer’s Body present the archetypal blonde virgin who’s doomed by the sexual undertones of their own story. Both Laura and Needy are blonde, young, and depicted as melancholic through their actions. Not only does this oppose Carmilla and Jennifer’s own raven-haired features, but their physical appearance and background feigns innocence. Like the dozens of other final girls that predate both heroines, it sets up the tension between sex versus virginity, and goodness versus corruption. Unlike many final girls of the horror genre, however, Laura and Needy fail to preserve their virginity by the end. Not only do Needy and Laura enact sexual encounters with their raven-haired counterparts, but they express a subconscious attraction long beforehand. The audience is invited to read this desire as homosexuality plaguing the innocent when instead these heroines show guilt in something more literal: their changing into the monster. Both Laura and Needy end their respected stories turned into “the creature,” and it is their own self-hatred for what they've become that ends their true innocence. If Carmilla and Jennifer are the cause of the disease, it is this final epiphany and acceptance of the fact that they can no longer be naive that dooms them.

Carmilla was positively received despite its overt queer themes whereas Jennifer’s Body had the opposite effect when it hit cinemas. Nevertheless, both works are considered cult-classics in their own respect because of their nuanced depiction of sapphic relationships. Laura and Needy’s internalized homophobia and hatred and hyperfeminity can seem surface-level conservative, and yet there is relatability in this. No hero is left unchanged by their narrative, and Laura and Needy’s inability to accept this leads to their own demise. Jennifer’s Body and Carmilla share identical stories because of their monster depiction, hyper-feminity, and virginal corruption, but they also speak to their audience’s desire to see queerness expressed. Even villainous representation is representation, and the multi-layered feelings of both the villainesses and heroines speak to their handling. Misogyny and homophobia may have changed in its public perception between 1872 and 2009, and yet these lady killers thrive in the horror canon—and they likely will for another hundred years.