Jonny’s refusal to become anyone’s victim makes the themes brought up in this genre-defiant film a cut above the rest.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 7, 2023

This is the kind of movie where, at any moment, the editor might throw in an insert shot of an oozing orifice, keeping viewers on their toes.

| Sep 5, 2023

It’s not always clear what the movie is trying to say, but even its misfires are more interesting than most because of what Reeder and her stars bring to their characters.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 1, 2023

The film is almost impatient about teasing out any depth of feeling from its scenarios.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 29, 2023

This particular opening lends itself to endless continuations and explorations, and when you have a director like Jennifer Reeder, an old story can get retold like no other.

| Aug 26, 2023

Scary, funny and meaningful.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 26, 2023

This is a sly, poetically gory vision of predation, female rage, female survival and every kind of shape-shifting women learn, out of necessity, when they’re young.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 24, 2023

Screwy and strange, “Perpetrator” is gleefully unsubtle, but its ensanguinated excess is part of the fun.

| Aug 24, 2023

Emotionality is reframed as a potent weapon, rather than a flaw misogynistically invoked to deem women incapable, in Perpetrator, a smart high-school body horror in which empathy takes on supernatural qualities.

| Jul 5, 2023

Perpetrator is a very welcome return to form for one of the most original and fearless genre directors working today.

| Feb 23, 2023

Funny, freaky and full of feeling, Reeder’s genrefied feminist flick is a big deal.

| Feb 20, 2023

Feels at once slap-happy and deliriously free-associative, but then it isn’t a horror film per se so much as an energetic piece of conceptual feminist pop art.

| Feb 18, 2023

Perpetrator may be silly and over-the-top, but inside of it lies a beating heart — quite literally, you will see — that yearns to express itself.

| Feb 18, 2023

There are satisfying genre elements, to be sure, Perpetrator cannot be accused of playing it safe.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 18, 2023

The tonal uncertainty is hardly helped by an arch performance style that too often strays closer to play-acting than acting — an impression enhanced by the disparity in age between much of the principal cast and the teenagers they’re playing.

| Feb 17, 2023