The Body review – this sexy retro high school drama is like Cruel Intentions … with added Satanic rituals

This coming-of-age tale of Catholic school girls is gleefully camp from the off – and full of fun references to its 2004 setting. And then a Halloween party goes wrong… What’s more judgmental than a teenage girl? Easy: the Catholic church. Deliciously, Netflix’s new YA drama The

This coming-of-age tale of Catholic school girls is gleefully camp from the off – and full of fun references to its 2004 setting. And then a Halloween party goes wrong… What’s more judgmental than a teenage girl? Easy: the Catholic church.

Deliciously, Netflix’s new YA drama The Body has both in equal measure. It’s Halloween 2004 at St Mark’s Catholic school and the social hierarchy is exactly as you would expect. Perched at the top is the dance troupe, the Lions, presided over by Anya (Kristina Bogic) and Elise (Sara Boustany), two best friends skirting around their sexual chemistry.

The show’s resident outcasts are Lisbeth (Geena Meszaros) and Leo (Jackson Kelly), previously homeschooled siblings who live a limited existence with their unwell mother. Leo seems like a harmless weirdo (or do his disturbing drawings suggest otherwise?) while Lisbeth is a classic loser desperate to ingratiate herself with the cool crowd. Her opportunity arises when she’s invited to a Halloween party at an abandoned convent nicknamed Devil’s House ...

what could possibly go wrong? Dressed as “Slutty God” in an attempt to meet the raunchy dress code, Lisbeth heads to the party, where she’s disappointed to learn that a free spot on the Lions team has been filled by Grace (Sofia Wylie), the devout niece of the school’s priest. But when an ecstasy-fuelled, Satan-baiting initiation ritual leaves Grace comatose and the Lions experiencing hallucinations and seizures, the equilibrium of the school is upended.

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