Jennifer (1978)

Seemingly inspired by Carrie (1976), AIP's 1978 release Jennifer is also reminiscent of Stanley, about a social misfit with power over snakes and even Willard (1971) (which Stanley is arguably an imitation of), the movie about a social misfit with an army of trained rats.  Here the title characted id teenaged girl from a backwoods religious background (sound familiar?) who is a scholarship student at an elite girls' school.  Naturally, she has trouble fitting in, constantly mocked and victimised by fellow students from wealthy backgrounds and resented by the headmistress.  Despite the presence of a sympathetic teacher and the friendship of some older girls on the swimming team, Jennifer finds herself on the receiving end of a relentless series of humiliating and cruel 'practical jokes' from her classmates.

Of course, Jennifer isn't just any regular teen.  She has the 'power', as her hillbilly pet shop-owning father keeps telling her.  As a child, during evangelical church services, she could handle venomous snakes without being bitten - she had power over them.  At first she tries to reject this part of her past, but when the bullying reaches its crescendo, she inevitably invokes it again, in a climax that sees the bullies attacked by poisonous snakes, with one particularly unpleasant boy getting his head bitten off by a giant phantom snake.  Her chief tormentor perishes in a fiery car crash after the giant snake materialises in the back of the car she is trying to escape in.  As cheap exploitation knock offs go, Jennifer isn't a bad film, when judged on its own terms.   It has decent enough production values - even the giant snake heads don't look too bad - and benefits from a decent cast which includes Jeff Corey as Jennifer's father, Bert Convy as the sympathetic science teacher, John Gavin as the .Senator father of the main bully (he filmed this shortly before going into politics for real) and Nina Foch (who back in the forties had been the female lead in a number of horror films for Columbia, including Return of the Vampire and Cry of the Werewolf), as the headmistress.  Lisa Pelikan, playing the title role, gives a strong performance, never playing her character as too much of a victim, so her later turning of the tables doesn't seem out of character.  The film's big problem, though, is that for most of its running time it is simply a pretty standard school bullying drama, the horror and supernatural elements only really manifest in the last few minutes - despite being told that Jennifer has the 'power', we see no actual evidence of this until the climax.  Still, as I said, on its own terms, as a piece of low budget exploitation, Jennifer is perfectly enjoyable, although lacking in originality and completely predictable.