In his analysis of Jerk, theater scholar Jordan Schildcrout states, "The production becomes a meta-puppet show when the actor playing David is giving voice to the puppets playing the killers, who in turn give voice to the puppets playing the corpses... In the final scenario, though, David abandons his puppets and does all the voices, including his own, as a ventriloquist, not moving his lips, as if he is also losing his humanity, becoming increasingly inanimate. In the story, David is ultimately alone in a house of corpses, and in performance he is alone on an empty stage, with only lifeless puppets sharing the space."
The film basically presents the play "Jerk", that is a one-person puppet play by the American writer Dennis Cooper, made in collaboration with director Gisèle Vienne and performer Jonathan Capdevielle, based on Cooper's 1993 novel of the same name. The novel is based on the story of serial killer Dean Corll and his teenage accomplices David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley. The play develops the conceit that Brooks has learnt puppetry in prison and, as part of his rehabilitation, acts out the murders in which he participated via the use of glove puppets and ventriloquism. The performance also involved sections in which the audience read about the murders in pamphlets, entitled "Two Texts for a Puppet Play by David Brooks" that were distributed.
Dean Arnold Corll (December 24, 1939 - August 8, 1973) was an American serial killer and pederast who abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973 in Houston and Pasadena, Texas. He was aided by two teenaged accomplices, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley. The crimes, which became known as the Houston Mass Murders, came to light after Henley fatally shot Corll. Upon discovery, it was considered the worst example of serial murder in U.S. history.