The Rule of Jenny Pen

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Director James Ashcroft brings forth fear with mixed results in “The Rule of Jenny Pen“ based on a short story by Owen Marshall. The film boasts a solid cast with John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush but the locale and tone is a bit too morose and melancholic to conjure any visceral charges or thrills.

The setting is a convalescent center in Taupō, New Zealand. Former hard-bitten Judge Stefan Mortensen is a new patient recuperating from a stroke.

After a few days, Stefan (Geoffrey Rush) is harassed in the dining hall by the jowly and mean-spirited Dave Crealy (John Lithgow) who has a puppet as his alter ego. Stefan does his best to ignore the cacophonous and weird Crealy, but the man persists pouring urine on Stefan and violently masturbating his roommate, football star Tony Garfield (George Henare) in the film’s singularly shocking scene. Crealy turns the man into a whimpering submissive through barking roars and absolute sadism. The baby-faced puppet that Crealy is invariably accessorized with is both a sexual instrument and a boxing glove—a half pair of infantile brass knuckles.

Stefan does not know how to proceed in light of Crealy, but as his behavior increases, shifting from the boorish to the barbaric, he vows to complain to the supervisor. Surprise, surprise, no one believes him. Meanwhile, Crealy grows in psychosis as the puppet on his hand grows larger and larger, a nursery homunculus, generic and blank. 

After each attack, Stefan becomes more and more incapacitated, at times unable to speak or move. The other residents babble, drool and stare into space blocked in by pastel and gray walls. The staff is cold and taciturn. Such moments (especially the beginning) skirt the edge of torture porn.

Stefan is a man on a cement isle, bereft and isolated. Crealy is a foul tempered and vile man, but his menace contains little punch or percussion. Beyond barking, hitting or the pummeling of abdomens with a plastic puppet named Jenny Pen there is little to fear. In order to be truly frightening a villain has to possess something of mystery embodied in the quality of dreams. Crealy merely feels a mean spirited, petty and foolish man, hardly a being befitting Halloween. 

Add to this the environment of catatonic wide-eyed residents and one only feels confinement rather than suspense. 

The most eerie and fearsome aspect in the film is Jenny Pen herself and the absent and glowing sockets that speak for her eyes. But aside from this, “The Rule of Jenny Pen” is only an irksome series of encounters with an angry and barbaric man rather than a scary horror-show.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com