The following contains descriptions that some readers may find disturbing.

Summary

• Jennifer’s Body and The Loved Ones were both released in 2009 and include a scary female villain as their primary antagonist, making them a natural point of comparison for each other.
• While Jennifer's Body's titular antagonist is much more sympathetic than The Loved One's Lola, they're both dynamic villains with plenty of nuance.
• Both Jennifer Check and Lola Stone carved out their place in horror history due to the way their violent natures challenged audiences' expectations.

2009 gave horror audiences a plethora of iconic films. From Orphan to My Bloody Valentine 3D, the genre closed out the early 2000s with a bang. Among the blood splatter and chilling plot twists was a long list of characters who leaped off the screen and cemented their place in horror history.

Two of these iconic characters came from the films Jennifer’s Body and The Loved Ones. On the surface, there wasn’t much the two films had in common. The former was a supernatural feminist coming-of-age twist on the demon possession trope, while the latter continued the early 2000s trend of torture and gore-heavy horror films. However, there was one undeniable component the two films shared — both Jennifer’s Body and The Loved Ones had terrifying female villains who cemented themselves as some of the best and most iconic in the genre’s history.

Jennifer Check Took A Bite Out of Men and Won Girls’ Hearts

Her Experiences in the Film Mirror Those of Many Female Viewers

In the 15 years since Jennifer's Body debuted, female horror fans have embraced Jennifer Check, the high school cheerleader turned succubus who serves as the villain of the movie. After a local indie band sacrifices her to Satan in order to achieve fame and fortune, Jennifer comes back from the dead with an insatiable thirst for male flesh and blood. While she brought terror to her high school, her long-standing friendship with classmate Needy began to crumble. While most viewers (hopefully) can't relate to feasting on their classmates, Jennifer's Body did relate to a female friendship (one potentially tinged with romantic undertones) falling apart under pressure.

Jennifer also endeared herself to audiences because of the horrors she went through. Many female audience members related to the violence she experienced at the hands of the indie band. According to UN Women, 1 in 3 women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime. Jennifer was violated and had her body — something the boys of their small town always commodified for themselves — taken away from her yet again by the band. Watching her take revenge on her classmates gave viewers a chance to see the first time Jennifer’s body belonged solely to her. It is far more satisfying to see her eat boys it is to watch Friday the 13th's Jason Vorhees claim another camp counselor victim.

Megan Fox didn’t receive the praise she deserved for bringing so much nuance and vulnerability to her character. Behind her witty retort and easy grins was an insecure girl aching for love and someone to see more than just her pretty face. While applying makeup for the school dance, Jennifer painted on a smile the same way she did her foundation, flawlessly choreographing the inner turmoil Jennifer was suffering at that moment.

Fox’s comedic timing also brought levity and a much-needed satirical edge to the film. When Needy told her she was killing people in a deleted scene, Jennifer responded cheerfully with, “No, I’m killing boys! Boys are just placeholders, they come, and they go!” Fox delivered the line right on the line between saccharine and satirical — a difficult balance to strike. Like all her dialogue in the film, she sold it perfectly and put a spin on it that no other actress could’ve done, much the same way Robin McLeavy nailed her role as Lola Stone in The Loved Ones that same year.

Lola Stone’s Pink, Sparkly Facade Quickly Turns Bloody

Her Unexpected Sadism Forces the Audience to Rethink What a Villain Looks Like

A massively underrated Australian horror flick, The Loved Ones also released in 2009 and provided audiences with stomach-churning gore and a female villain even scarier than Jennifer Check. After Brent Mitchell politely turned down classmate Lola Stone’s proposal to attend the school dance together, she enacted the perfect revenge: kidnapping, torture, and forced participation in her own sick, sparkly homemade dance.

The horror genre was no stranger to torture in the early 2000s. Saw, Hostel and other franchises chock-full of blood, guts, and brutal deaths released a slew of sequels during that time. However, what made Lola and The Loved Ones stand out among the crowd was the visceral realness of her actions. Many audience members deal with romantic rejection at some point in their lives, making her twisted plan of revenge feel more real — if not relatable — as a result.

The only piece of Lola’s limited backstory audiences received was through the form of her scrapbook. Each page was dedicated to her previous victims, dating all the way back to her primary school days. While her dad certainly gave her whatever she wanted and had a relationship much too close for comfort with her, Lola didn’t receive any sympathy the Jennifer’s Body script provided for its villain. She was simply a spoiled, entitled monster for her entire life, making her pure, unbridled evil with no substantive reason for doing what she did. Lola Stone didn’t look like a killer, which made her even more scary when her true nature as a sadistic killer revealed itself.

Lola’s initial soft-spoken demeanor and love of the color pink juxtaposed itself with the sadistic torture she put Brent through. She gleefully injected his vocal cords with bleach and poured salt into his wounds. Her equally evil father sprinkled glitter into his gashes while she furiously drove the knives deeper into him. Wearing her bright pink dress and matching crown, she drilled a hole into his forehead not once, but twice. She even lobotomized her past victims and nearly did the same to Brent. Like Jennifer Check, Lola is a teenage girl — not what usually comes to mind when one thinks of a horror movie villain. However, both of them spilled more blood than most of their male counterparts, and they did it in truly horrific fashion.

Female Characters Were Always the Heart of the Horror Genre

Jennifer's Body and The Loved Ones Continues This Long-Standing Trend

While 2009 gave horror fans two villainesses for the ages, Jennifer and Lola are the first women to impact the horror genre. Tiffany Valentine in Bride of Chucky, Annie Wilkes in Misery, Asami Yamazaki in Audition, and Pamela Vorhees in Friday the 13th all left their mark on horror, demonstrating that female actors could do far more than star as the final victim of the genre's masked killers. Thankfully, Jennifer's Body and The Loved Ones are both well aware of this fact, and they make excellent use of Jennifer Check and Lola Stone's murderous intentions. Still, they couldn't have been brought to life without the murderesses who came before them.

Women have always been integral to the horror genre. Whether they’re the hunters or the prey, the genre often puts them at center stage — a trend that existed decades before 2009's pair of female-driven horror films were released. Now, Jennifer Check and Lola Stone sit in good company with the other iconic female killers and final girls who left their mark on horror history. They proved, much like the tagline for Jennifer’s Body, that hell really is a teenage girl.

• 

  Jennifer's Body

  R

  A newly-possessed high-school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?

  Director

  Karyn Kusama

  Release Date

  September 18, 2009

  Cast

  Megan Fox , Amanda Seyfried , Adam Brody​

  Runtime

  1 hour 42 minutes

• 

  The Loved Ones

  R

  When Brent turns down his classmate Lola's invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge.

  Director

  Sean Byrne

  Release Date

  November 4, 2010

  Cast

  Robin McLeavy , Xavier Samuel

  Runtime

  1 hour 24 minutes