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)

Night’s End

‘NIGHT’S End‘ is a really atmospheric horror film with a very interesting concept but the precision and execution of its delivery is far from perfect.

This is an intriguing old school haunted house tale with a hallucinatory ‘Jacob’s Ladder‘ quality from director Jennifer Reeder, who previously made surreal mystery thriller ‘Knives and Skin‘.

Reeder is a filmmaker to watch out for but a limited budget has clearly restricted her vision with this sub-par feature.

‘Night’s End‘, now showing on Shudder, tells the tale of Ken (Geno Walker), a man out of time, stuck in a rut and unable to face the world outside after it all goes pear-shaped. Set entirely in Ken’s apartment, we get up close and personal as he struggles with his own personal demons.

A few years earlier, Ken’s alcohol problems caused him to suffer a nervous breakdown, ultimately leading to him losing his job and family. He has now relocated to a new city and lives in a rundown building where he is the only tenant. He has the windows blacked out, he won’t leave the building to find work or to see his children, and his diet consists solely of coffee, tomato soup and Pepto-Bismol.

Ken has taken to posting videos on YouTube in the hope of making enough money to remain shut away from the world and save him from having to get a “real job”.

But then his old friend Terry (Felonious Munk) notices in one of Ken’s videos, a spooky occurrence. A stuffed bird that was one of his subjects as an amateur taxidermist falls from a shelf it was resting on for no apparent reason, which sets them to further explore the possibilities of Ken’s apartment being haunted.

Reeder’s film is well crafted and produces moments with real supernatural thrills, but overall, the limitations of a small budget are all too transparent, and it all quickly comes apart at the seams.

(2/5)