Film Review: 'The Perfection' (2019): An Instant B-Movie Classic

The Netflix original The Perfection is a wild ride with a lot in common with Asian revenge flicks.

The Perfection (2018), directed by Richard Shepard, from an original script by Shepard, Eric C. Charmelo and Nicole Snyder; starring Allison Williams, Logan Browning, Steven Weber, and Alaina Huffman.

The Perfection, a Netflix original directed by veteran television helmer Shepard (Girls), is a bloody, unpretentious B-movie with a preposterous plot. It shamelessly glories in its B-movieness, grabbing the viewer by the lapels and shouting, “Yes, I’m a B-movie! So fucking what? Deal with it!”

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. There’s quite a large and welcoming place in horror for films with absurdly twisted plots, one-dimensional characters, and nasty, over-the-top denouements—as long as those elements are done well, with confidence and style. And The Perfection does them very, very well.

We open in Shanghai where the students and faculty of an elite American music school are attending an international competition. Judging the cello division are two famous alums of the school — Lizzie (Browning, from Dear White People), the current reigning musical star, and Charlotte (Allison Williams, from Get Out), a former star who abandoned her career several years before to care for her sick mother. They play a beautiful cello duet as a demonstration and then get together romantically as well in private hours. Later, they decide to take a tour of rural China on a bus, with disastrous results for Lizzie.

She becomes very ill, vomits worms, and starts seeing bugs crawling out of her arm. Charlotte convinces her that it’s a rare Ebola-like disease that can only be cured by cutting off her own hand with a cleaver, helpfully provided by Charlotte. Whacked out by seeing and feeling the bugs, Lizzie then does as she’s told and faints dead away afterward.

Sometime later, Lizzie next shows up at the school--a beautiful mansion in the woods--minus one hand. The school’s sinister director is Anton (Steven Weber, looking not much different from his character in the 90s series Wings) and he’s appalled at Lizzie’s injury, which of course has ruined her usefulness as a star pupil. Anton wants to throw her out, but she explains that she’s got Anton’s other star pupil—Charlotte—in the trunk of her car.

With Lizzie unable to perform as the school’s star anymore, Anton knows that he needs Charlotte to take her place. He lets both of them in and this sets up the ending, which unveils the dark secrets of the school and its faculty.

Shepard films it all with confidence and verve, never once letting on that he knows the plot is ludicrously contrived. In a couple of places, he reveals a “twist” by literally backing up the action, in frenetic Guy Ritchie style. It’s fitting that the opening scenes take place in China, because this movie (especially the ending), has a lot of things in common with your average East Asian revenge flick—body horror, dismemberment, a few segues into mild (by Asian standards) torture porn. Don’t go in expecting transcendent cinema, but a watch is recommended for those who can appreciate the special gloriousness of a good, entertaining B-movie. Currently streaming on U.S. Netflix.