Jennifer
Jennifer Baylor (Lisa Pelikan, later in Ghoulies) is a scholarship student who attends an all-girls' school, Green View, and she's repeatedly ostracized by a certain school clique, headed by spiteful Sandra Tremayne (Amy Johnston). Just because she's smarter and different from the bunch, including her southern accent, almost everyone immediately dislikes her, so the girls attempt to torment her, until she leaves the school. The only people who befriend Jennifer are a couple of female jocks, along with Mr. Reed (Bert Convy), a teacher at the school. Sandra and her gang of friends just keep trying to get Jennifer into trouble, but Sandra wants to take it a step further. When it starts to get out of hand, one of Sandra's friends, Jane Delano (Louise Hoven), refuses to go on with it. Sandra then does a very evil thing by having her boyfriend, Dayton Powell (Ray Underwood), rape Jane! Jane won't have anything to do with Sandra's wrongdoing, so she turns to Jennifer, wanting to get revenge.
What no one knows, except Jennifer and her religious fanatic father (Jeff Corey), is that Jennifer has the physic power to control snakes! When one prank enrages Jennifer, her once-dormant powers return. Sandra and her crowd have a terrible and deadly plan for Jennifer, but they might end up feeling sorry they ever picked on her...
Beginning with the very cheesy theme song by Porter Jordan, I was pretty reluctant in watching the film! Although, besides being an obvious Carrie clone, this 1978 Brice Mack-directed supernatural thriller was pretty entertaining. It plays like a TV movie, but there is some nudity, violence, and profanity, branding it with a 'PG' certification, which surprised me. Some of the pranks pulled on Pelikan's character are just downright nasty, cruel, and evil, sometimes being worst than what they did to Carrie!
The giant snakes unleashed at the film's conclusion are pretty silly looking, especially when one victim falls in its stomach, which looks like a basement! Sure, this one's a piece of cheese cake, but it's pretty enjoyable. Recommended to Carrie fans, or if you liked The Craft, which followed much later in 1995, but Jennifer is not better than the two films. Retitled Jennifer, the Snake Goddess for TV.
