Jerk

Adapted from Dennis Cooper’s short novel, a story based on true events. Texas, mid-1970s. A serial killer, Dean Corll, enlists the help of two teenagers, David Brooks and Wayne Henley, to slaughter some 20 young boys, as he records these murders on film. From the prison where he now serves his life sentence, David Brooks, turned ventriloquist and puppeteer, tells his side of the story through a puppet show he has imagined.

Director: Gisèle Vienne

Writer: Dennis Cooper

Cast: Jonathan Capdevielle

Year: 2021

Run Time: 1hr 1min

Country: France

Language: French

Genre: Theatrical Horror / Puppetry

Gisèle Vienne is a French-Austrian artist, choreographer, and director. After studies in philosophy and music, she trained at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. She works regularly with, among others, the writer Dennis Cooper. Over the past 20 years, her work has been seen across Europe and regularly performed in Asia and in America. Jerk, Vienne’s first feature, is based on her acclaimed stage performance and earned her an award at Sitges FIlm Festival.

"DENNIS COOPER’S creative work, totaling several collections of poetry, numerous essays, multiple widely read and controversial novels, and more recently GIF novels and films, has been disturbing both gay and straight readers for some time now. At first glance, Cooper’s work seems most invested in celebrating antisocial and transgressive impulses, questioning “normality,” disturbing conventional notions of the relationship between sociality and sexuality, and shocking the reader with its intense intermingling of eroticism and violence." –LA Review of Books