Charlotte Willmore (Allison Williams) was a cello prodigy at the prestigious Bachoff Academy until her mother was taken ill and she had to return home to care for her. A decade later she is invited by Anton (Steven Weber), the head of the Academy to choose their next prospective student at a competition in Shanghai. Whilst there she befriends Lizzie (Logan Browning), the girl who replaced her when she left. This meeting will send them both on a path of discovery neither of them could predict. 

The Perfection is a horror movie that is a lot of fun. It plays out in acts and it uses some tricks of withholding information that make the focal point of fear different in each act. As a result you have to go in knowing as little as possible, so I will not be discussing more than the plot synopsis above. 

The opening act of the film is particularly tense and nerve wracking and my mind was racing to all the possible horror movie outcomes the plot would point towards. When the plot evolves and gives you more information it was then fun to see how much you may have got right and start the guessing games all over again. 

At its core it is about abuse, the trauma it causes and the defences we put up against that pain. But the wrapper it is placed in is a fun, schlocky, over the top horror movie. One that revels in pushing that to eleven in the final scene. 

It’s worth mentioning how good Allison Williams is here. Subverting the character she created in tv series Girls and leaning in to the role she played in Get Out. Her lead performance here is what allows the film to work so well.