Alicia Silverstone and Jennifer Reeder on the blood and empathy of ‘Perpetrator’ 

Growing up can be a bloody business, especially for those of us who menstruate. In her latest horror film, writer-director Jennifer Reeder doesn’t shy away from the messier bits of her heroine’s coming-of-age journey. In an interview with Mashable, conducted before the SAG/AFTRA strike commenced, she and leading lady Alicia Silverstone dug into how blood and extreme empathy play into Perpetrator. 

“I think empathy is the greatest gift and the greatest curse at the same time,” Silverstone said, reflecting on her character’s pivotal role in the film. 

Perpetrator centers on a teen girl called Jonny (Kiah McKirnan), who upon turning 18 comes into a power known as “Forevering,” an intense form of empathy that telepathically links her to others and even allows her to shape-shift. Silverstone co-stars as Aunt Hildie, Jonny’s mysterious mentor who guides her through a turbulent journey that involves petty crimes, missing girls, dark humor, and plenty of blood. 

“Hildie is just trying to prepare Jonny for her awakening into womanhood,” Silverstone said. “That it’s okay — all of you is perfect. All of your feelings, that’s all your truth. And having that empathy is so important.” 

Indeed, in the film Jonny’s empathy allows her to connect to both missing girls and their abductor, giving her unique insights toward being a hero but also putting her in danger. Silverstone relates to this, noting, “I have such deep empathy, and it can destroy you.” Still, she added, “it’s more a gift because the lack of empathy is so painful to witness.” 

What is the monster at the center of Perpetrator? 

The villain is the aforementioned kidnapper, but there are some flourishes of monstrous fantasy in Jonny — a detail that taps into a great tradition of female-fronted coming-of-age horror. Some critics out of the film’s World Premiere at Berlinale criticized Reeder’s world-building for being too ambiguous to peg down, while Mashable critic Belen Edwards praised the film’s approach: “Perpetrator never lays out the full specifics of the Forevering for us, but it doesn’t need to. Mimicry of body language, shifting faces, and spooky in-unison dialogue get the point across easily (and creepily).” 

Reeder, seemingly stung by those reviews, noted that to some Forevering might be “a real conundrum.” But she defended her method without apology. “When I knew that I had wanted to do a shape-shifter story, I absolutely did not want to make her a werewolf or a vampire,” Reeder said. “There are plenty of great werewolf and vampire stories out there. Like, God, I love Ginger Snaps. I did not want to remake it.” 

Empathy is a superpower in Perpetrator. 

“So, I was thinking just about the world, not just about this film, just about the world, and how much better off it would be if people leaned into their empathy or people even just had a little bit of empathy,” she said, echoing Silverstone.

“That led to doing some research about empaths,” Reeder continued, “as an extension of a kind of psychic ability, or clairvoyance or something. This ability is to feel someone else’s feelings. And then I thought that would be really productive kind of superpower, to be able to absorb someone else’s feelings but then sort of give it back to them, either in a fight or in a loving way or whatever — to really be able to utilize your feelings as an effective weapon.” 

From there, she imagined this power evolving into physically mirroring the other person. Beyond bringing an exciting visual to the inner reflection Forevering allows, this shape-shifting also reflects a kind of aesthetic transformation common to girls figuring out their identities. “There is fluidity; teenage girls are changing their looks all the time.” 

From there, Reeder reflected how her own intense empathy informed the film. “All the feelings I was feeling going into writing Perpetrator — really feeling kind of turned inside out — I was like, well, I can either just sit and be squishy and inside-out, or I can take this and make this into something, into art. And here we are.” 

Why is blood so important to Perpetrator? 

While plenty of horror films use blood as spectacle, Reeder was more starkly matter-of-fact about its role in her story of a cisgender girl becoming a woman: “We’re crime scenes. At any moment, you could have started your period in the middle of night and then woke up and you’re like, ‘Well, I’m a crime scene.'” 

From there she reflected on how horror can be a daily reality for women, saying, “I get asked a lot like, ‘There’s a lot of women doing kind of genre now more, and where do you think that comes from?’ And I say a couple of different things, like, ‘Well, first of all, the most beloved monster, Frankenstein’s creature, was invented by a teenage girl. So, let’s just start with the fact that we own monsters. And I was taught from a very young age that we’re prey. I mean, other people aren’t taught ‘Don’t stalk women,’ ‘Don’t attack women,’ ‘Don’t kidnap kids.’ I was taught as a young girl how to be afraid every day.” 

Let’s just start with the fact that we own monsters.

“And from a very early age, we have a very profound and consistent relationship with blood,” Reeder continued, noting that for those who menstruate, blood is as common as the threat rape culture promotes, but also not as scary. “I think we also still live in a culture that is in total denial of that.” 

Reeder mused, “I had wanted Johnny’s body itself to also be charged and magical. Her blood has a kind of a power of its own. It’s not something that she or anyone else needs to be afraid of. I just really had wanted to have some imagery that paid homage to one of my most beloved final girls, Carrie, and that whole last sequence where she’s just in that prom dress covered in blood. It’s like a really terrifying and profound image.”

To Reeder, blood is not inherently violent, but a symbol of growth and change and even birth. “One last thing I would say is Alicia’s a mom; I’m a mom. There’s also something about like, the first time that you see your baby after birth —” 

At this, Silverstone interjected enthusiastically, “And they’re covered in blood, and long and hairy!” 

“Childbirth is genre,” Reeder concurred. “It’s gnarly. I mean, it’s beautiful and fantastic. But it’s gnarly.”

Plus, horror lovers love blood. Referring to her previous film, the chilling horror-musical Knives and Skin, she concluded, “For the fans of Knives and Skin who had wanted it to be less horror-adjacent and more horror, I was like, ‘Well, I can always put more blood in there.’ So that’s what we did.” 

Perpetrator debuts in select theaters and on Shudder Sept. 1.