When I last saw filmmaker Jennifer Reeder, her work came as part of 2021’s horror anthology V/H/S/94. Although her segment of that package didn’t do much for me, I still figured I’d give her 2023 feature-length project Perpetrator a look.

Due to a rebellious streak, 17-year-old Jonquil “Jonny” Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan) gets sent by her father Gene (Tim Hopper) to live with her Aunt Hildie (Alicia Silverstone). This unveils a secret, as Jonny’s 18th birthday reveals a family spell called “The Forevering”.

This grants Jonny amazing powers and a disturbing obsession with blood. She uses her new abilities to find out who caused the disappearance of many local women.

That synopsis might lead one to believe Perpetrator will offer a supernatural story mixed with feminist revenge thriller. And to some degree, that becomes true.

But only partially because Reeder tosses everything she can find into the blender. This results in a movie that leaps from one genre to another with alacrity – and without coherence.

I admire Reeder’s ambition, but she can’t pull off the many transitions. Perpetrator jumps around so much that it becomes jumbled and messy.

One minute we get a dark serial killer tale ala Se7en and the next we end up in high school melodrama. The film also veers into vampire-style chills, coming of age drama, different forms of parody, body horror, and nascent same-sex romance.

Boy, that seems like a lot to pack into a single 101-minute movie. Perhaps a top-notch director could make it work, but Reeder can’t.

This means Perpetrator bobbles its stylistic changes and rarely makes a lick of sense. It forgets characters and scenarios for extended periods and never seems to figure out where it wants to go.

That serial killer who lurks at the heart of the narrative? We lose track of that plot point for far too long, a choice that makes the movie’s dramatic beats flail.

Again, genre mashups can – and often do – work. But Perpetrator just leaps off the deep end and bites off far more than Reeder can chew.

The performances largely don’t help. Actually, McKirnan mostly does fine as our lead, but the other actors veer from stiff and wooden to completely campy.

Even a veteran like Silverstone fails to deliver a good performance. She plays up the part’s theatrics and just seems silly most of the time.

Again, I do appreciate that Reeder tried to do something unusual with Perpetrator. Unfortunately, it just never clicks and it becomes annoyingly quirky rather than endearingly ambitious.

Perpetrator appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a largely positive presentation.

Overall sharpness worked fine. I thought matters became a little more soft than expected at times, but the image generally felt pretty accurate.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. No source defects resulted.

Colors emphasized warm reds and oranges, with some blues tossed in as well. The disc reproduced the tones as intended.

Blacks seemed deep and dense, while low-light shots came across as mostly smooth. Though a little erratic, I still felt generally pleased with the visuals.

Similar thoughts greeted the competent but not especially impressive DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Though it came with a decent soundfield, the end product lacked great ambition,

Most of the mix emphasized moody atmosphere and creepy music. A few more action-oriented scenes opened up the soundscape better, but these appeared too infrequently to make much of an impact.

Audio quality worked fine, with music that appeared full and bold. Effects offered appealing accuracy and range.

Dialogue remained natural and concise. This wound up as a satisfying track without much to make it stand out as memorable.

When we shift to extras, we start with an audio commentary from writer/director Jennifer Reeder and director of photography Sevjide Kastrati. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets, locations and production design, cast and performances, photography, editing and various effects.

Expect a pretty solid chat here. Reeder and Kastrati cover a good mix of domains and make this an engaging and informative chat.

Mirrors and the Monstrous Womb spans 10 minutes, 40 seconds. It provides a “video essay” from filmmaker Jennifer Handorf.

The program examines the use of mirrors and wombs as symbolism in horror as well as their depiction in Perpetrator. Handorf helps set up these links well.

Under Cast Interviews, we locate four segments. These involve actors Kiah McKirnan (5:22), Alicia Silverstone (6:32), Melanie Liburd (5:23) and Christopher Lowell (5:07).

Across these, the actors discuss characters, performances, working with Reeder, and other thoughts about the production. A few minor insights emerge but these clips feel more like promo fluff.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we get three short films and two music videos, all directed by Reeder. The former category brings 2018’s All Small Bodies (19:34), 2018’s I Dream You Dream of Me (10:13) and 2017’s LOLA, 15 (4:25), whereas the former offers 2024’s “Screenplay” by Aitis and 2024’s “Tiny Baby” by Joan of Arc.

“Baby” provides a cloying song and a pretentious video. “Screenplay” fares better in both regards but not enough to turn into a good tune or an engaging video.

Bodies shows two weird kids who live on their own in the woods until one gets confused by her period and they seek out a weird and threatening woman. Poorly acted and silly, it goes nowhere.

In Dream, a woman in a wedding dress walks along a dirt path while we hear moody music. That’s it – that’s the film. I’m sure Reeder felt she conveyed an important message here but I’ll be damned if I can figure out anything.

Finally, LOLA simply pans around the title girl’s room before we see her skateboard along with more moody music. Another short with a probable intended important message that seems meaningless to me.

A mix of genres, Perpetrator never settles into a groove. With clumsy acting and a jumbled narrative, the movie feels scattered. The Blu-ray comes with largely positive picture and audio as well as a good collection of bonus features. Although I appreciate the filmmakers’ ambitions, the end result doesn’t connect.