Perpetrator

Jonny Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan) leaves her troubled father to live with her aunt Hildie Baptiste (Alicia Silverstone). She doesn't know her or her mother. Her 18th birthday is coming up and she starts a new school.

At the end of the day, I don't know what is going on within this movie. This Shudder flick plays its cards really close to its vest. It doesn't tell the audience anything except a lot of questions. That could be interesting for a good while, but eventually, the movie needs to let us into the world building. I'm not asking for a lengthy exposition. I'm just looking for the general layout.

This film has an incredibly odd vibe.

Mostly, because the acting in it is awkwardly bad.

Though, seemingly purposefully so.

At least...I'd like to hope so.

The plot is particularly bizarre.

Almost hard to follow.

An hour in...and all I could tell...is that it is some sort of coming of age film...about a high school girl getting her period...who might be getting initiated into a coven of witches...that may or may not already be dead...

Either way...in whatever world this is...someone is targeting and killing young women.

Who might be a cop.

That is trying to frame a young player (by going after every chick he gets with).

It's all a pretty odd experience.

That has to be some sort of nightmare, if it is to make any sense.

Eventually...what is actually going on, does come to fruition.

But it doesn't make it any less weird or awkward.

By this point...it has set it's course...and is sticking to it.

Doubling down on the trippiness, if anything.

I can't say for certain that I fully get what's going on in this picture.

But I can safely say that it will leave you thinking "what the hell did I just watch?!".

That being said...it's hard to say whether it's actually good or bad.

As it defies such a dichotomy.

In exchange for it's overt weirdness.

That makes for a super odd/awkward viewing experience.

4 out of 10.

They swung hard, but this movie was a bit of a mess. It was almost impressively convoluted with so little explanation that I'm not fully convinced that they were even positive what they were attempting to convey.

It kept going back-and-forth between awkwardly taking itself too seriously and this weird campiness that didn't feel self aware. The ending, or lack there of, was abrupt and pretty lazy. This felt more akin to the first three episodes of a teen tv series crammed into one that mashed up a confusing euphoria and a not well explained monster high. It generally kept my attention but I feel like it was out of a pure attempt to figure out what was going on.

They didn't really keep up, stick to or follow through with their own plot and it ended up being pretty unfulfilling overall. Not the worst movie ever and had some interesting ideas but overall would not recommend.

Honestly this movie confused me, it basically had a really interesting idea that is unique it could be made into a really good feature film. But the execution lacks in many places.

The movie is competently directed and the acting is fine but the really big problem of the movie is that it leaves more questions than it tries to answer. The movie keeps adding new aspects but doesn't explain them and that leaves the viewer unsatisfied. You have lots of interesting ideas and aspects that the movie is introducing but since they are not explained you forget about them or you stop caring. This left me feel very empty at the end of the movie and I was definitely not satisfied with the end product. [4,5/10]

In the beginnig promising, yet in the end disappointing horror. One thing I had to give to "Perpetrator" is that it didn't play it safe and tried to bring new twists into the horror genre. On the other hand it tried to incorporate silly, almost humorous, scenes which felt out of place, instead of some actually creepy and frightening moments it relied heavily on gore and blood, which was more disgusting than scary, and I felt like Kiah McKirnan, the actress in the role of the protagonist, struggled to emotionally connect with her character. What also completely disrupted me from the main horror plot was an unnecessary romantic side-line. I was also very much looking forward to seeing Alicia Silverstone back on the silver screen again, but sadly the role of the mysterious aunt of the protagonist didn't suit her - her hyper-stylized performance fell somewhere between a "ridiculous witch from a childs fairy tale" and "Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada". In the end I appreciated the overall idea of !Perpetrator", but it definitely needed a more elaborated and sophisticated approach.