Shape shifter
Horror takes a bow as ‘Perpetrator’ premieres at Berlin film fest
BERLIN >> “Perpetrator,” a fantastical horror movie with a feminist bent from writer-director Jennifer Reeder, world premiered this week at Berlin’s International Film Festival.
Made in Chicago to be released by Shudder later this year, “Perpetrator” marks Reeder’s third feature-length horror film — and her fifth time in Berlin.
“Prior to showing my feature in 2019, I had shorts here in 2015 and 2016 and I’ve been on the
Generations jury. But from the beginning,” she said in an interview at the Grand Hyatt Berlin, “I realized I had a robust fan base outside the US. My films feel like American films but there’s a darkness that outside the US those audiences are very keen to see.”
She finds the press “outside the US is open to more nuanced storytelling. Sometimes it feels exhausting to convince US audiences what I’m doing is smart and worthwhile, while the European audience just gets it. And Berlin is such a celebration of films from around the world.”
“Perpetrator” is all about Jonny Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan, “Mare of Easttown”), a troubled teen who lives with her depressed dad and supports both of them as a burglar. Jonny soon learns she is set to inherit spectacular powers on her 18th birthday.
For Reeder, “Perpetrator” is a look at a culture that both praises teenage youth and beauty while also being, “A culture that sets out to annihilate these young women. We call them willful and out of control. I had this thought about a young girl, Jonny, who becomes out of control. She’s a real shape shifter with a message about female empowerment thru generations of women.”
One surprise is seeing Alicia Silverstone as Hildy, a crucial role. “How much did we luck out! I was looking for an actor who had been introduced to us in a teen movie. We made a list and Alicia was at the top of it. She’s done interesting work like ‘The Killing of Sacred Deer,’ not just ‘Clueless.’ She’s incredibly smart, really open and curious and has been making some interesting decisions.
“This is not a glamourous part,” Reeder emphasized. “I modeled it on Catherine Deneuve in ‘The Hunger’ and she loved that. She’d never seen ‘The Hunger.’”
Hildy, Reeder said, “is the matriarch of shapeshifting women, of an uncertain age. She’s not immortal but there’s a suggestion she’s been shape-shifting longer than a mortal human.
“She has a tough exterior. She’s an unknowable woman with a deep love for family and for Jonny.”