“Perpetrator perp-perpetrator, you’re a perpetrator.” The beats of Britney Spears’ Womanizer oddly fit this chaotic, feminist body horror by Jennifer Reeder.

Jonny (Kiah McKirnan) – short for Jonquil which doesn’t at all capture her barely suppressed rage – is approaching her 18th birthday. Her father Jean (Josh Bywater) is struggling to function as a parent and, within an unnamed challenge looming when she turns 18, packs Johnny off to creepy Aunt Hildie’s (a hilariously deadpan Alicia Silverstone).

At Johnny’s new school (although she legitimately looks about 30) she becomes embroiled in the plight of three missing girls and some weird phenomenon with blood.

It’s a plot full of melodrama and mayhem that works best when it’s not taking itself too seriously. There are familiar beats that recall Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both the movie and the TV series, Carrie (1976), and Ginger Snaps (2000) but Reeder can’t quite manage the pace of the movie to build much-needed tension.

McKirnan plays it straight, as does Silverstone albeit with a mannered diction that both feels like bad acting and a welcome note of levity. The blood motif is sometimes laboured, but you’ve got to give props to any film that so delightfully integrates menstrual blood and a real Red Velvet birthday cake.

Director: Jennifer Reeder
Origin: France, USA (2023)
Language: English
Genre: Horror , Thriller

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