Perpetrator is an… unconventional… Shudder original. It has a nebulous connection to reality sometimes, other times it seems grounded… or something approximating grounded anyway. It takes a good 30-35 minutes to approach the semblance of a plot… before that, it seems to freely roam between cryptic, surreal, and concrete (but possibly satirical). Yeah, they took a swing at something… possibly too wildly.

The movie more-or-less is about a town where teens are being snatched for unknown purposes. Our teen lead has an odd home life and a pretty lousy school life… but something is bubbling up within her and she soon realizes she might be able to help save the kidnapped girls.

This is an unconventionally bloody film. Lots of blood… some of which might even exist. But it also might be analogy blood… unless it actually exists in which case it’s real but also symbolic. Symbolic of a woman’s period, perhaps? Symbolic of the casual disregard society has for teen safety in school? Or for the desire and scorn adults have for their flesh? I dunno… could be any of that, could be none of it, could be all of it.

The movie definitely has something to say but I’m not entirely sure I know what it is. It’s weirdly casually funny about school safety… and that’s pretty good satire. The rest of the movie wavers between tangible scares, casual hangout, and more symbolic weird.

I kind of admire whatever in hell the filmmakers were trying to do. I’m unsure if it was successful but they sure aren’t pulling their punches. But the flick is also a little too scattershot and hangs around too much in an artsy, head-scratching landscape without ever quite getting to the point. Your tolerance for that is your own. I kind of liked it.

Score: 77