PERPETRATOR (2023)

3 stars

Arrow Films. Limited Edition Blu ray. 18th August

Jonquil ‘Jonny’ Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan) breaks into houses – she takes what she steals to a fence to get money – though he is violent towards her. She needs the money to pay rent to her dad Gene (Tim Hopper). She also steals drugs for him from the medicine cabinets. About to turn 18 she is desperate to get away from the situation she is in and away from her controlling father.

He takes some of the drugs and things get weird and trippy. She finds him on the bathroom floor passed out. Blood oozing from his head. The first sign something strange is going on here. As they watch TV together, blood oozes from both their noses. Odd…

Jonny is shipped off to Great Aunt Hildie (Alicia Silverstone) whilst her dad tries to pull himself together. Hildie seems off kilter. Every so often there is flash imagery intercut.

When the teen starts at a new school, the school nurse – who has a bandage on her nose after some kind of procedure – asks probing, inappropriate and somewhat bizarre questions of Jonny. More nose bleeds. This is one bizarre school. During a shooter drill Principal Burke (Christopher Lowell) shoots the girls with a water pistol and tells them they can only rely on themselves – especially as a lot of girls appear to have gone missing in the area.

Weird things happen – Jonny can ‘feel’ other girls. The missing girls. Her face shifts taking on the features of other people. Then one of her new school friends goes missing…

Jennifer Reed, who wrote the script and directs, has made a somewhat different, sometimes creepy, often freaky film. Lots of oozing blood on show – some that appears to have a life of its own. Certain surreal sequences are interesting but ‘out there’ and I am not sure I fully understood where it was coming from or if indeed it was trying to say something. Silverstone’s performance is bit hammy, however McKirnan is good in the lead.

Steve Kirkham

EXTRAS

Brand new audio commentary by writer-director Jennifer Reeder and director of photography Sevdije Kastrati

Video essay by filmmaker Jen Handorf (10 mins)

Cast interviews with Kiah McKirnan (5 mins), Alicia Silverstone (6 mins), Melanie Liburd (5 mins) and Christopher Lowell (5 mins)

A couple of music videos directed by Reeder: Screenplay (2024) (5 mins) and Tiny Baby (2024) (5 mins)

Three short films directed by Jennifer Reeder: All Small Bodies (2018) (20 mins); I Dream You Dream of Me (2018) (11 mins); LOLA, 15 (2017) (5 mins)

Shudder trailer

Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options by Creepy Duck Design and Duke Aber/Shudder and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kat Hughes and Marianne Lampon