Body(2015)

Three upper-class coeds, Cali (Alexandra Turshen), Holly Greenberg (Helen Rogers) and her sister Melissa, or Mel (Lauren Molina) are spending Christmas Eve at Melissa’s parents’ house. The girls get bored and tired after eating too many snacks and smoking a little marijuana. Holly and Mel want to go to bed, but Cali has a different plan. She tells them that her rich uncle has a mansion, which he’s currently vacated for the holidays. Why not head over there and party? The three drive there, drink, and revel. Little do they know that the groundskeeper, Arthur (Larry Fessenden) is on his way to check things out and make sure all is well.

After Holly points out that all the pictures in the dining room are of Asians and Cali is Caucasian, Cali confesses that this is not, in fact, her uncle’s place. It belongs to an ultra-wealthy family she used to babysit for, who takes an annual Christmas vacation. Holly and Mel vote to leave immediately, but before they can, Arthur enters the house.

The girls hide in an upstairs bedroom, then decide to run for it. Arthur catches Holly on the stairs. She pushes him, and he tumbles down to the hardwood floor, breaking his neck – but not his spinal cord. Since he’s unconscious and not breathing, they all think he’s dead, and Cali comes up with a plan. She concocts a story about how this “stranger” tried to break into the house and rape them once he knew that only girls were inside the house. They paint him as a predator, but Cali is showing her true colors fast.

Holly reluctantly agrees to the plan, putting herself into contact with Arthur’s hand and body to make it look like he scratched her, pulled out a clump of her hair, and inserted his fingers into her private parts. At that moment, the groundskeeper, now paralyzed and barely able to breathe, comes to and begs Holly to call for help. She confers with Cali and Mel.

The three of them drag Arthur into the downstairs sitting room and have another meeting, where Holly and Mel want to confess and turn themselves in. However, Cali knows that if they’re to get out of this situation without going to prison, Arthur must be out of the picture. She tells the other two that she’s going to go grab her phone, and then they’ll call 911 together. While they wait, Cali heads to the sitting room and smothers Arthur with a pillow from the sofa. Dead men tell no tales.

When Holly finds Arthur’s lifeless corpse, she and Cali fight. Cali knocks her out, ties her up, and enlists Mel’s help in a modified plan: Arthur came in the house and tried to rape one of them, but instead of falling down the stairs or even being on the stairs, he went to the sitting room and attacked Holly there. Cali broke a sofa leg off the table and bashed Arthur’s head in, but not before Arthur dealt Holly a fatal blow while trying to assault her.

This is a deadly fiction, of course. Cali means to kill Holly and leave Mel alive to share her secret, but Mel turns on her so-called friend once Cali attempts to murder Holly. Mel bludgeons Cali and kills her instead.

Even though Holly is grateful that her sister saved her life, there is still the matter of their trespassing in the house and their roles in Arthur’s death. Mel says she’ll do whatever Holly wants. Much of Cali’s self-preserving ethos has rubbed off on Holly, who says the best thing to do is lie.

The two remaining coeds call 911 and report that Cali died a hero, saving them both from Arthur, the potential rapist. Not only is an innocent man now dead, but his reputation is ruined and his children are fatherless. Holly and Mel will live with this guilt for the rest of their lives. The final shot of the film is set to the music of “Silent Night,” but Holly knows that neither she nor her sister will ever “sleep in heavenly peace” again.

In short, all three girls end up being “whodunit.”