Young women are at risk. Through sexual activity, a deeply violent world and a Serial killer who kidnaps teenage girls from a local school and robs them of their beauty cut by cut. The only people who can stand against this monster, these social horror dynamics, have a very special ability. Which is primarily expressed through liters of fake blood dripping from repulsive-looking holes.
Welcome to the world of Perpetrator, a film by director Jennifer Reeder that is currently showing at the Berlinale. The history between body horror and feminist social criticism wants a lot – but manages disappointingly little. Is it still worth taking a look at the film, which is as ambitious as it is disgusting?
The good: Perpetrator has a lot of ideas and really disturbing horror elements
17-year-old Jonny (Kiah McKirnan) has been feeling for a long time that something is wrong with her. When her drug-addicted father finally hands her over to wealthy Hildie (90s icon Alicia Silverstone), the girl not only has to adjust to a completely new school whose students are gradually disappearing. On her 18th birthday she also finds out that she has a powerful “super power”. – which I do not want to reveal at this point. Slightly reminiscent of the beginning of the cannibal romance Bones and All, but – spoilers! – no humans are eaten in Perpetrator.
Watch the Berlinale clip for Perpetrator here:
At this point you will find external content from YouTube, which complements the article. You can show it and hide it again with one click.
Still, something is going wrong in this world, and it’s pretty exciting at first glance. The parents of the teenagers don’t care about their children and prefer to have one plastic surgery after the other. Everyday school life consists of exercises in which the students hide from the armed school principal and “self-help courses” that convey: Better give up if you’re attacked and don’t cry under any circumstances, it’s annoying! And then, of course, there’s the serial killer who picks up pretty young woman after pretty young woman.
That the filmmaker here Misogyny, sexual violence and obsession with beauty wants to criticize is clear. How Reeder shows gaping body and room openings, pain and delusions is disgusting, yes, but also interesting. I want to know what’s happening here and why. Not only at school or in the murderer’s torture chamber, but also inside the main character Jonny.
The Bad: The Berlinale film is more goofy than shocking and makes little of its cast
WT Films
Jonny (middle) has a very special ability
The further the film progresses, the more I have the impression: Probably fewer ideas would have been better. Because nothing really meshes in Perpetrator. Johnny’s supernatural powers should help to catch the serial killer. Together with her friend and a classmate, she hatches a plan. Two young women who join forces to catch the killer of their friend and fall in love with each other – wouldn’t that be a great story!
Unfortunately, apart from a few visual gimmicks and a crude scene at the end, Johnny’s skills are neither visible nor understandable. It is claimed that their special power is helpful, but it has never been proven in a comprehensible manner. The same applies to the only vaguely mentioned motives of the killer or any sense of what kind of world this movie is supposed to be set in. Is everyone here really either evil, helpless, endowed with super powers or non-existent? Nobody has emotions or understandable motivation, but every second person has a band-aid on their nose.
Alicia Silverstone as a wacky dark mentor might be interesting but seems more like a grown woman cosplaying Wednesday. In general, Perpetrator has a very diverse, actually exciting cast, whose characters are never allowed to act like real people. Which is also due to the fact that even the most dramatic dialogues always sound so wooden and over-the-top, as if the film actually wanted to make fun of what is happening here.
For whom is Perpetrator still worthwhile and where can you see the film?
The horror film is too bulky to be one of those trash gems that you watch ironically at a movie night with friends. Who is more interested in unusual ideas than a comprehensible story and not expecting a classic horror movie, but could still have fun with Perpetrator.
Perpetrator runs until February 24, 2023 in the panorama program of the Berlinale. The American-French co-production has not yet had an official theatrical release in Germany.