{"id":47205,"date":"2025-04-08T00:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T04:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47205"},"modified":"2025-04-08T01:49:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:49:51","slug":"47205","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/08\/47205\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rule of Jenny Pen (2025) [Shudder]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A stroke sends an elderly judge to a nursing home, where he faces off against a sociopath in the new Shudder original featuring Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Rule of Jenny Penn is wonderfully subdued, keeping a simmering boil of restraint from director James Ascroft, co-writing with Eli Kent from a short story by Owen Marshall, exploring the terror of aging, the loss of control, and how to gain it back no matter what it takes.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an inherent horror in aging. The prospect of growing frail and losing control of one\u2019s faculties and life situation looms. Many excellent horror films have used this concept for its terrifying possibilities of reality. The question of what we might face in our later years is already scary, one of the largest unknowns, second only to the death that follows. There is real terror in the loss of control, an inability to help those in need around or even oneself. People make decisions for you, your mind might not be as strong as it used to be, and your memory may blip.<\/p>\n

The Taking of Deborah Logan, focusing on the effects of Alzheimer\u2019s, would be unsettling enough without the added supernatural overlay. George A. Romero\u2019s \u201clost\u201d film The Amusement Park, also on Shudder, was a deeply sad, uncomfortable, brilliantly realized metaphor. It\u2019s one of his best. Even the immensely silly Bubba Ho-Tep has statements about how society treats the elderly.<\/p>\n

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In The Rule of Jenny Pen, Judge Stefan Mortensen, played by Geoffrey Rush, is forced to face the hard truths of his failing body. As a stroke leaves his limbs in a state of partial control, he\u2019s forced to move into a retirement home very much against his will. A sudden shift in lifestyle is shocking and terrifying. The situation is compounded as he becomes the target of fellow resident Dave Creely, a terrifying John Lithgow as a sadistic sociopath ruling over his tiny kingdom with menace and a strange doll puppet on his wrist (the titular Jenny Pen).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a chilling delight to witness the clash of the two powerhouse actors. Rushs\u2019 Mortensen is a surly, pompous ass, often condescending and distancing. He\u2019s a jerk, but also believes in justice and calling out wrongs. It\u2019s fitting that the case he was trying during his stroke is of abuse of children, powerless to the adults in control. Rush makes his jerk just sympathetic enough for the audience to follow willingly. It helps the other side is a power-mad sociopath. John Lithgow is an American treasure. He\u2019s one of the greatest living actors, well-known and well-loved, but also a little unsung. He\u2019s fantastic at playing the loveable, perhaps a little curmudgeonly, protagonists, but he shines in his villain roles. Whether it\u2019s schemy sorts such as his Cardinal Tremblay in last year\u2019s Conclave, to straight up monsters of DePalma\u2019s Blow Out and the Trinity Killer on Dexter, I love watching the despicable side of Lithgow. For Creely, Lithgow leans into the chilling cruelty of a lifelong bully, still working his nasty nature. Lithgow is relishing the evil, but refrains from chewing too much scenery; being just big enough to be horrific instead of impish. His New Zealand accent (this is a Kiwi production) comes and goes strangely; I thought there would be something from this that never came to light.<\/p>\n

We all know people like Creely. He\u2019s been present at the home for a long time, delighting in his cruelties and control. He sneaks, he\u2019s sly, he keeps poking at emotional wounds, grinning his yellow-toothed smile in forcing his will. He\u2019s not the least bit happy to have Mortensen call him out, questioning his power. But he\u2019s also smart enough to be deniable to the staff, either evading any suspicion or playing the \u201ceccentric old guy\u201d card.<\/p>\n

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Kent and Ashcroft never let the reality get away from them. Creely has violent acts, big moments, and a large energy, but he never comes off cartoonish or \u201cno way can this old man do that.\u201d Suitably, Jenny Pen herself is simple, a hollowed-out baby doll rather than an overly complicated and detailed \u201cmovie murder puppet\u201d. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not incredibly creepy (especially in how Lithgow uses it). Instead, Ashcroft shoots the film with menace. There\u2019s an air of malice and unease; giving visual to both Rush\u2019s disassociation with his new lot in life and Lithgow\u2019s power over him and others.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Where others may make the place a hotbed of evil, misscare, or neglect, Ashcroft and Eli again show restraint in their setting. Ashcroft shoots the other residents in a way that presents a sadness to the overall situation of the home. There\u2019s a sadness to the left lives, banished to this place, often infantilized. The staff is caring, but swamped with work; their inability to help the judge or see his tormentor clearly is only due to how much they are forced to deal with on the daily. When so many have some sort of delusion, a resident claiming terror from another out of sight is more easily discounted; again, the horror of helplessness.<\/p>\n

The Rule of Jenny Pen might be too slow for those expecting bigger moments, more audience-satisfying payoffs, or even bloodshed and kills. The film has a simmering intensity as a tete-a-tete of two old men, still working their considerable acting talents, face off in an original and menacing film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stroke sends an elderly judge to a nursing home, where he faces off against a sociopath in the new Shudder original featuring Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[302,477,3423],"class_list":["post-47205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-drama","tag-horror","tag-psychological-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47205"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47208,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47205\/revisions\/47208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}