Perpetrator review.
Consistently compelling…and equally dizzying…Perpetrator eventually adds up to the sum of its parts.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Perpetrator
Directed by Jennifer Reeder
Written by Jennifer Reeder
Starring Kiah McKirnan, Melanie Liburd, Christopher Lowell, Alicia Silverstone, Avery Holliday, Ireon Roach and Josh Bywater
Perpetrator Review
When tackling a review for a movie like Perpetrator…you almost want to stop everything and just say “go watch it”. You can’t actually do that, mind you. So much of Perpetrator defies conventional logic and description that it would be great if you could, however. What matters most is whether the unique madness here is worth watching. This review will do its best to explain why it most definitely is…even if trying to explain what’s happening at many points of the movie is a fool’s errand.
That isn’t to say that Perpetrator doesn’t make sense. By the time the credits roll everything falls completely into place. While the story is unfolding…in the odd ways in which it does…that’s a might bit harder to follow. Rest assured that your investment will be rewarded with an understanding of what you’ve been watching. It shouldn’t be too hard to commit to the strange moments presented. Perpetrator is a consistently compelling viewing experience. Even when I was struggling to find purpose in the seemingly bizarre choices it presents.
Jonny (Kiah McKirnan) is sent to live with her Aunt Hildie (Alicia Silverstone). She attends a new school, makes new friends and…on her 18th birthday…inherits her birthright, “the forevering”. The forevering is, essentially, a deep empathy that allows Jonny to connect to people. A tactic that comes in handy when several of her friends go missing. Jonny sets out to hunt down the perpetrator.
Is the forevering every properly explained to a point where you can sit with a full understanding of it? No. Is it an original and fascinating power that keeps Perpetrator surrealistically interesting? Oh yes. Original is probably the best word to describe writer/director Jennifer Reeder’s newest film. Surreal would be a close second. Nothing feels natural in Perpetrator. Forget the mystical power that comes with Jonny’s 18th birthday…conversations between characters feel slightly off. Or…in Aunt Hildie’s case…maybe more than slightly.
There’s really a tale of two stories happening here. There is the easier to follow abduction story…and the strange nature of the world it’s taking place in. The former inevitably becomes wrapped up in the latter’s absurdity. The latter keeps Perpetrator feeling fresh and vital from beginning to end.
Even the more basic ideas that Perpetrator contains have their own odd spin on them. When Jonny discovers that every missing girl had recently hooked up with classmate Kirk…the story takes a brief foray into investigative horror. Before Jonny can get too far down the rabbit hole investigating Kirk…he simply appears behind a shower curtain behind her…ready to help. Their hair brained scheme to lure the killer works…and quickly bridges the strange characters populating the world with the one straight-forward story in it. And, of course, everything gets weird.
Weird and bloody. Perpetrator has moments of extreme violence and gore. They fit right into the story where everyone is completely off their rockers…but manage to be jarring, nonetheless. What follows Jonny’s capture is unexpected…as is everything that precedes it. Hidden identities, familial bonds, unrevealed superpowers, an apparently widespread system of physical improvements through harvesting the regenerative blood and tissue of young bodies…you know…that old story.
There’s a lot to chew on when you watch Perpetrator. Twists you can’t see coming because they’re completely insane pop up in the third act. Each one met with a kind of…oh yeah…that makes sense. Which is how you know Reeder and company have hooked you into their unique world. It all starts to make sense to you the deeper you sink into it. And then you sit down to review it and are struck by how insane it all really was. The best kind of crazy.
The cast is fantastic…especially because they are tasked with presenting something so off center it’s never going to feel right. Like the strange story unfolding…the performances begin to feel exactly right the farther you go with them. Alicia Silverstone dials the oddness of the movie to 11 as soon as she appears on screen. The movie eventually rises to match her quirks so that what once was strange now feels natural. Perhaps that’s Perpetrator’s greatest trick. It doesn’t start to make more sense. It changes you to understand it. Unmasking itself only when you are prepared to see the full picture.
This isn’t even getting into the themes of the piece…or its ability to twist something you thought you saw coming into something completely different. There are a lot of tricks up this one’s sleeve. Things that bare examination after adapting to its singular way of telling you.
To make a long story short…go watch it.
Scare Value
Perpetrator is purposefully impenetrable for long enough that one would be forgiven for tapping out. Those who persist, however, will be rewarded with a fully formed story that never shies away from its weirder impulses. Even as it changes form into something more recognizable…Perpetrator stays as strange as compelling as can be.
3.5/5
Perpetrator Link
Streaming on Shudder
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