Perpetrator — Perpetrator( Blu Ray)
From 2023, Perpetrator is a heady, though often confusing, mix of female coming-of-age drama, fantasy, and serial killer thriller with an overt focus on blood. Here from Arrow Video, both in the UK and stateside, is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in both new and archive extras.
Perpetrator was written and directed by Ohio-born Jennifer Reeder. Since 1995, she has twenty-six credits to his name- five of these are features, and twenty-one shorts. Her other features include queer wrestling comedy/ drama Signature Move (2017), Twin Peaks-like coming of age thriller Knives And Skin (2019), and haunted apartment horror Night’s End (2022).
The one hour and forty minute film starts as it means to go on, as we cut between looped footage of a young woman being stalked with filmed through a mask footage, and clearly meant to be creepy, on an operating table encounter. After we sit with this for seemingly way too long, we drop into watching a large afroed woman trying to break into cars/ houses- before returning home to an older man to present him with drugs she got from a break-in. He goes into the bathroom, and starts having a rather /cheap dodge face shift effect- before bleeding out the mouth & collapsing- at this point, we have no idea who anyone is, and really what the film is meant to be.
In time, we find out the large afro-haired woman is Jonquil 'Jonny' Baptiste(Kiah McKirnan)- she’s ‘troubled’, and she is about to turn eighteen. She shipped off the stay with a stern blond-haired middle-aged woman, who is clearly meant to be mysterious- again, no real explanation of who she is, it’s only some way down the line we find out this is her aunt Hildie Baptiste(Alicia Silverstone), and the man from earlier was her father, Genre( Tim Hopper).
As we move on, Jonquil is sent to a local school, taking in a bandaged, shifting female department head and a very erratically behaving head. As well as a selection of friends, including Chloë Grace Moretz looks/acts alike Taylor Kinkead.
The film unfolds as a mishmash of hazed/ dreamy filters, folks touching-then-driving into blood, more dodgy/ crappy looking face shifts, crawling along dialogue scenes that are clearly meant to be meaningful/ but are flat, contrived, meant to be satirising ‘high-school’ scenes.
The ‘serial killer’ element doesn’t really reappear until forty-five minutes in, and this unfolds in a decidedly contrived manner- with zero fear, dread or unease. With things conventionally dipping into fantasy to quickly tie this element up.
I know as a fifty-plus-year-old male, I’m not the target audience for this film, though I do enjoy both coming-of-age dramas and serial killer films. But I’m afraid to say I gained little or nothing from the film, just managing to sit through it due to the review. In finishing Perpetrator was a confusing, contrived, and often frustrating mess.
As we’ve come to expect from Arrow Video, we get a well-curated/ good-sized selection of extras. On the new side, we have commentary by writer-director Jennifer Reeder and director of photography Sevdije Kastrati. This isn’t bad, been a decent enough director's track- where we find out the film was shot over four weeks in Chicago in March 2022. And there were always five lots of five gallons of blood on set. We get the rundown of locations in the film, shooting difficulties, and pointing out the actors. The VFX effects, where cuts were made, and the result of the test screening. As I said, it's not a bad track, though it didn’t convert me to the film. And there's Perpetrator: Mirrors and the Monstrous Womb (18.48) a video essay by filmmaker Jen Handorf.
On the archive side, we get a selection of on-set actor interviews- Kiah McKirnan(5.22), Alicia Silverstone(6.32), Melanie Liburd (5.23)and Christopher Lowell(5.07). We get a good selection of Jennifer Reeder other work- two music videos- Screenplay (2024) for Aitis. Tiny Baby (2024), for Joan of Arc. And three short films: All Small Bodies (2018, 20 mins); I Dream You Dream of Me (2018, 11 mins); LOLA, 15 (2017, 5 mins). And an original trailer.
In conclusion, Perpetrator just wasn't for me, but who knows, it may click/ work with you. If you like the idea of a blend of coming-of-age drama, dark fantasy, and serial killer thriller, just don't expect much from the last element of the film's makeup.