Amazon's Life is Strange adaptation just added the perfect director

If anyone can understand showcasing the horrors of being a teenage girl, it's this director

If you love Life is Strange, you probably have mixed feelings about the TV adaptation coming to Prime Video. (I certainly do.) On the one hand, it’s exciting that one of the best narrative-adventure games ever made is getting a new lease of life, but on the other hand, Amazon hasn’t always been the best when it comes to handling female-led TV series. Paper Girls, we hardly knew ye.

However, the dial was quickly turned to “frothing-at-the-mouth-hype” by the news that Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body, The Invitation, and two episodes of Yellowjackets) is set to direct the first two episodes of Life is Strange.

Amazon’s adaptation will dramatize the original video game, in which photography student Max Caulfield (Tatum Grace Hopkins) discovers she can rewind time after saving the life of her childhood best friend, Chloe Price (Maisy Stella). While Max and Chloe’s relationship is at the heart of the video game, the narrative centers on the mystery of the disappearance of fellow student Rachel Amber, which leads them to uncover the horrific secrets of their small town.

Life is Strange is known for being nostalgic and occasionally cheesy, but it’s also a series that refuses to pull its punches in depicting difficult subjects such as sexual assault, homophobia, drug abuse, and racism. One moment you might be laughing at the truly cringe-worthy dialogue, the next, you’re rewinding time to support a young girl coping with teen pregnancy. There are several instances where it feels like the floor is going to collapse underneath you from the sheer dread of what you’re witnessing.

With such a delicate balance between capturing both joy and horror, it was essential for Amazon to find a director who can maintain that equilibrium. And if you ask me, Kusama is that director.

Kusama’s 2009 horror film, Jennifer’s Body is perhaps the best example of why she’s the perfect choice for Life is Strange. The horror-comedy written by Diablo Cody stars Megan Fox as Jennifer Check, a high school student who is kidnapped to be used as a virginal sacrifice for the devil. When the ritual goes wrong, Jennifer comes back to life as the immortal spawn of Satan — with a craving for the flesh of teenage boys.

Jennifer’s Body was a box-office flop, but it quickly became a cult classic, particularly beloved by fans of queer horror. Despite often being ludicrous in tone, Kusama’s direction is sincere in holding up a mirror to misogynistic tropes associated with teenage girls, as well as addressing toxic masculinity and its effect on women.

The same could equally be said for Yellowjackets. (Kusama directed two episodes, including the tone-setting series pilot.) The horror series follows a high school girls’ soccer team who get stranded in the wilderness after their plane crashes and must do whatever it takes to survive. Kusama’s portrayal of high school girls facing the horrors of adolescence, along with their fight for survival in a harsh wilderness that pushes them to extremes, demonstrates that she clearly understands the terrors teenage girls experience.

In both Yellowjackets and Jennifer’s Body, Kusama is unafraid to show women as predators (rather than merely as prey), without turning them into completely emotionless monsters. Max and Chloe aren’t as unhinged as Jennifer or the girls in Yellowjackets, but what they experience during the events of the original Life is Strange forces them to make decisions that will undoubtedly be difficult to watch.

Fortunately, I trust Kusama’s ability to portray those decisions in a way that feels authentic not only to Max and Chloe as characters but also to the overall narrative of Life is Strange.