Perpetrator

DIRECTED by Jennifer Reeder, Perpetrator, which is new to Shudder, is a supernatural thriller that is deliciously unconventional and downright surreal.

Taking on the feel and style of the work of cinematic masters David Lynch and Dario Argento, it tells the story of Jonquin ‘Jonny’ Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan), a reckless teen sent to live with her estranged aunt Hildie (Alicia Silverstone).

Brimmimg over with black humour and an eccentric plot that is as gruesome as it is off-the-wall, it sees our young leading lady experience a radical metamorphosis on her 18th birthday that redefines her called “forevering”.

With a new heightened sense of super empathy, Jonny taps into the pain and hurting of those around her to the point  that she can shape-shift into their faces.

When several teen girls go missing at her new school, she goes after the perpetrator using her new super powers.

A feral teenage lesbian horror noir, Perpetrator is weird, wacky, and very entertaining. A film that comes across like an existential study on puberty and women’s place in society, it combines elements of movies such as Mulholland Drive, Clueless, Existenz, and Donnie Darko.

Alicia Silverstone is a joy in the role of the witchy and sophisticated aunt. She brings an element of high camp and decadence to proceedings that is hard to resist.

There’s a gleam in Silverstone’s eye throughout, clearly loving every minute of hamming it up as the tantalising Panto-esque matron in every scene. “I’ve been buried alive twice,” she divulges with contorted zeal at one point.

But there’s plenty of other twisted oddballs in Reeder’s trippy thriller to eat up with relish. The plastic-surgery obsessed nurse and the over-enthusiastic school principal who always expects the worst, who exuberantly drills his students on how to survive a school shooter situation by bursting into classrooms with his water gun, give proceedings a ludicrous nightmarish quality.

Overall, you’ll either love it or hate it, but there’s no denying its whipsmart allure.

(4/5)

A Wounded Fawn

A WOUNDED Fawn is a grand and surrealist slasher filled with hallucinatory imagery and fantasy-steeped themes.

Directed by Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor, Jakob’s Wife), it comes off as a Dario Argento-influenced violent crime thriller that oozes style and is veiled in Greek mythology to psychedelic effect.

– A Wounded Fawn – Photo Credit: Peter Mamontoff/Shudder

Dark and delicious, the film also serves as a warning to anyone considering dipping their toes back into the murky depths of the dating pool. Because while there may be plenty of fish out there, you also need to be on the look out for the odd predatory shark searching for its next free lunch.

A Wounded Fawn tells the story of Meredith (Sarah Lind), a museum curator who is finally ready to go back on the dating scene after an abusive relationship that has left her emotionally scarred.

Coaxed by her friends to take a weekend trip with her new potential love interest Bruce (Josh Ruben), she decides to go out on a limb and give romance one last shot.

Josh Ruben as Bruce Ernst – A Wounded Fawn – Photo Credit: Shudder

Bruce seems too good to be true. At first glance he is charming and attentive and seemingly harmless. He ticks all the right boxes, that is, of course, until they get to his art-deco woodland hideaway.

His home screams of good taste, success, and a soulful artistic streak that appeals to Meredith. But even before she has settled into their weekend love nest, voices from beyond the grave are screaming at her to run for her life.

You see, like many of the profiles on those dating apps, Bruce isn’t all he is cracked up to be.

If he had been more honest on his dating profile, Meredith would know that she has gone out into the deep dark woods with a mentally unhinged serial killer whose idea of a good time is dismembering his paramours and prancing naked around the forest while burying them under the moonlight. You know, that old chestnut.

A Wounded Fawn, now on Shudder, is a wonderfully strange and unique slasher that sees the tables nicely turned to deliver a perversely bizarre and thoroughly memorable viewing experience.

(4/5)