Jonquil Baptiste (known as Jonny) makes a living from burglaries and petty crimes. Her single father suffers from a strange illness and neglects himself and his daughter, so Jonny is taken in by her eccentric aunt Hildie. On her 18th birthday, the ice-cold matriarch introduces Jonny to the supernatural legacy of the women in her family. A woman’s life is a bloody affair, and blood oozes, splashes and flows thick and dark red throughout this film.
At Jonny’s new high school, classmates have been disappearing .The girls band together, aware they can expect nothing from the adults. They are all dysfunctional, the men profoundly dislikeable – maybe they’re even perpetrators. The headmaster is a sadistic figure who regularly organizes killing spree exercises in which he himself plays the murderer. Using her feminist superpowers, Jonny sets out in search of the missing girls. As Reeder puts it: »I had this idea of making something that started off with a ›wild‹ and ›out of control‹ girl who really becomes wild and out of control.« As in all of her films, Reeder’s unconditional sympathy lies with the teenage girls. And a direct line runs from White Trash Girl, her first short film, to this queer-feminist mix of body horror, gore and thriller.

Guest: Jennifer Reeder

Content note