Unruly teenager Jonny Baptiste lives alone with her father who struggles to make ends meet. Following yet another misdeed, the young woman is sent to live at her aunt Hildie’s, who is tasked with putting her back on the right track. The sophisticated but troubling woman reveals to her niece the terrible family secret that explains her angst. Jonny sets off on a painful but liberating metamorphosis that will lead her on the traces of a mysterious killer who targets local high-schoolers…

In the wake of Promising Young Woman, Perpetrator drives genre tropes into a corner, applying a Cronenbergian approach to the teen movie to better lambast patriarchy with ecstatic fury. This results in a blood-soaked and corrosive coming of age movie that smartly subverts its many influences in order to turn power relations on their heads. Icing on the cake: Alicia Silverstone has a field day as the stern and sadistic aunt!

Jennifer Reeder started making films in the 1990s. She has directed about 15 shorts and four features that have been shown in many festivals. As a committed filmmaker, she has often tackled topics such as the intimate, trauma, and emancipation, smartly using fantasy and horror to examine the place of women in society. After making a big splash with her previous movie Knives and Skin (NIFFF 2019), she delivers a new memorable and thought-provoking gem of a film.