Perpetrator

Jonny is tough, fearless and forthright. She picks locks with ease and seems to be able to take care of herself pretty well. She also slips rent money into her single father’s pocket. Their relationship is fragile and yet strangely symbiotic. Feeling overstretched, her father decides to send Jonny to live with a distant aunt. But even in the care of the strict Hildie, the teenager cannot seem to find peace. On her 18th birthday, Jonny is given a cake baked according to a magical family recipe which triggers a radical metamorphosis. At her new school, the constant killing spree-emergency drills create a tense atmosphere and soon five girls go missing. Inexplicably fascinated by their disappearance, Jonny sets out to look for clues and a blood-soaked coming-of-age story takes its course.
Jennifer Reeder’s new feature-length film is a dark, queer-feminist genre mix of body horror, gore and mystery. As in her earlier works, she looks at the world predominantly through the eyes of her young protagonists who, armed with biting humour and an unbroken sense of justice, manage to wrest moments of light-heartedness and solidarity from the twisted world of adults.

details

  • Runtime

    100 min
  • Country

    United States
  • Year of Presentation

    2023
  • Year of Production

  • Director

    Jennifer Reeder
  • Cast

    Kiah McKirnan, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Lowell, Melanie Liburd, Ireon Roach
  • Production Company

    WTFilms, Divide & Conquer
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film

Biography Jennifer Reeder

Born in Ohio, USA in 1973, she graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The stories in her award-winning feature films revolve around relationships, traumata and how to cope with such experiences.

Filmography Jennifer Reeder

1995 The Devil Inside | 2014 A Million Miles Away | 2019 The Dunes