Film Review: THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (2024): John Lithgow Terrorizes a Retirement Home in an Interesting, Bizarre Horror Film

The Rule of Jenny Pen Review

The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by James Ashcroft, written by Eli Kent, Owen Marshall and James Ashcroft and starring Geoffrey Rush, John Lithgow, Maaka Pohatu, George Henare, Fiona Collins, Yvette Parsons, Ian Mune, Bruce Phillips, Nathaniel Lees, Hilary Norris and Holly Shanahan.

James Ashcroft directs screen veterans, John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, in an intriguing horror movie, The Rule of Jenny Pen. In this film, which is set almost exclusively in and around a retirement home, Rush portrays a recently disabled judge named Stefan Mortensen who runs afoul of a psycho with a baby doll puppet on his hand, Dave Crealy (the always terrific John Lithgow). This is a dark movie with a lot of bizarre sequences, but if you stay with it, the film offers a lot of tension between the stars with some chilling scenes that will keep the viewer wondering where the story line is headed. Though the movie’s central conflict doesn’t go anywhere near uncharted territory (that’s not counting the premise itself), some viewers may find that the face-off between Lithgow and Rush’s characters could be worth the wait.

The Rule of Jenny Pen moves along at a sloth’s pace in the opening scenes. Stefan is hearing a case in court where there is child abuse involved as the film opens. Stefan dishes out his hard (but deserved) sentence to the culprit. Then, Stefan calls out the mother of the abused and scolds her for not being more careful regarding who she let around her kids. Stefan gets some physical pains and then falls down in court which leads to him being placed in a home for the elderly.

At the home, Dave Crealy walks around with the baby doll puppet on his hand. That puppet is called Jenny Pen, and she rules the roost (or so Dave has led everybody to believe). How do people pay their respects to Dave? By doing what he demands they do which is to (literally) kiss (or lick) the butt of Jenny Pen. It doesn’t seem the puppet even has a butt, but Dave’s victims lick the bottom of it per Dave’s request. In Stefan, Dave may find his most difficult victim yet. Although Stefan takes the abuse from Dave for a while, eventually, Stefan becomes mad as hell until he’s not going to take it anymore.

Lithgow’s performance is superb. He’s done horror before. Brian De Palma’s Raising Cain immediately comes to mind. Lithgow is a pretty scary guy and does this role up as he walks around moving to the groove of Jenny, the puppet on his hand. Dave terrorizes people in the retirement home, and one ends up dead at a pivotal point in the picture. It’s not believable that Dave could walk around the home without being noticed so the movie shows us how he sneaks past the workers of the place just to possibly suggest that something like this could happen. Lithgow makes this role his own and is so scary that one could see him as a monster that Stefan would have dished out his hardest sentence on as a judge.

Rush is effective as his character goes from being an unwilling victim by giving in to Dave (by doing whatever Dave says to) to one who turns the tables on the assaulter. With the assistance of another key elderly resident from the place, trying to beat Dave at his own game becomes a possibility. Stefan soon learns exactly how to attempt to defeat Dave, and the audience may find the results intriguing, if not wholly satisfying.

The Rule of Jenny Pen has problems as a film, though. It’s restricted to its one setting so unnecessary people come into the movie who don’t advance the plot forward such as musical instrument players who perform for the elderly residents. A lot of the movie feels dragged out, including the unsolicited additional character that is nevertheless played well by George Henare. This film’s major flaw is that it runs about 20 minutes too long and should have been more focused on Dave and Stefan. When it brings in the third wheel (Henare), I felt the movie took some major missteps in the plot which could have gone a different (and, potentially, better) way. An oversized Jenny Pen image or two also fail to amplify the material as the director intended.

This film’s use of Jenny Pen, the puppet, is effective. She’s a creepy little thing and many of the residents of the retirement home go through some extremely dire events thanks to the way Lithgow’s Dave horrifies them with the puppet. This is a good “Twilight Zone”-type premise that is extended far beyond the one-hour time frame it could successfully fill. Though the movie is padded, the performances make it worthwhile for die-hard horror fans as both Rush and Lithgow get to deliver well-written monologues to define their respective characters here.

While The Rule of Jenny Pen is far from the definitive horror movie, its two stars are old pros and come up aces in their turns. Lithgow’s role is more memorable, but Rush’s is the harder role to play as his character suffers some low blows that include excessive kicking from Lithgow’s psychotic character. I’m not recommending this film to general viewers, but horror movie fans will find two performances to revel in by watching this terrifying tale.

Rating: 6/10

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