James Ashcroft’s tyrannical elder care horror tale carries a psychological sting. The New Zealand filmmaker adapts Kiwi writer Owen Marshall a second time after his debut Coming Home in the Dark, “Jenny Pen” a more unlikely nightmare. Performance titans Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow confront themes of bullying, manipulation, and power struggles that echo relevance outside old folks’ homes—but the setting remains unique. Ashcroft and co-writer Eli Kent script unsettling helplessness within a facility where residents should feel cared for, instigating delicious chaos using a plastic-headed baby doll known as the menace Jenny Pen.
Rush stars as the honorable Judge Stefan Mortensen, who finds himself at Royal Pine Mews Care Home after suffering a debilitating stroke. His roommate is legendary rugby gunner Tony Garfield (George Henare), but Mortensen isn’t keen to make friends. He’s convinced he’ll rehabilitate, then move back to the big city—lofty ambitions from someone reliant on a wheelchair and lacking half his body’s essential motor functions. To make matters worse, Mortensen learns the population has an antagonist: Lithgow’s Dave Crealy. The faking dementia patient makes rounds each night and torments residents, making them worship his rubbish hand puppet. Either you accept Jenny Pen as your god or endure Crealy’s wrath—which Mortensen invokes.
Coming Home in the Dark is about visceral and gruesome violence; The Rule of Jenny Pen makes your skin crawl. It’s the product of two veteran thespians squaring off in a battle of shambolic wits. Rush’s brash intellect versus Lithgow’s perverse egomania. Both actors lose themselves to the wildness of nightly clashes as if the gated territory were their playground. It’s the nature of their interactions—Royal Pine feels like kindergarten. Crealy’s elaborate ruse mirrors a fibbing child who causes harm when chaperones aren’t looking, while Mortensen—the once respected official—is made to look foolish by Lithgow’s master puppeteer. Performances make it clear how old dogs still bite, exploiting the carelessness of senior care for chilling societal commentaries.
Cockneys Vs. Zombies and The Manor have brought traditional horrors to nursing homes (zombies, the supernatural), but few filmmakers accept the challenge of older-age genre stories. The Rule of Jenn Pen is the opposite, diving head-first into Royal Pine as a house of terrors. Crealy wanders around a ghost town at night where residents are plugged into monitors and catheters, striking an eerie emptiness. Matt Henley’s cinematography establishes Royal Pine as a haunted house, with Crealy as its midnight specter. What Crealy gets away with is diabolical, whether Jenny’s crammed into Tony’s privates or Crealy uses his stolen keycard to influence patients whose minds have faded. We often think of horror genre “evils” as slasher villains who kill with a vengeance, but Crealy’s controlling behaviors are no less deviant. Ashcroft may pick a quiet locale for his film, where grannies knit and read, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking any darkness or terribleness.
Instability is the film’s language, delivered from Mortensen’s perspective. We “blip” as he dazes out, time-traveling through regressing mind fogs. Ashcroft allows his story to wobble off its axis, rarely preventing any sense of calm (shades of Possum or Berberian Sound Studio). We presume to know what’s real, as Crealy brags to Mortensen in private about his mischievous defiance, but Mortensen is—at times—an unfaithful narrator. Ashcroft allows madness to spread like an infection through little details like gigantic Jenny Pen hallucinations or the tiniest change of her facial features. Crealy’s crooked teeth grow more jagged, and his eyes a demonic blue as Mortensen’s stay progresses. What begins as a delusional power play becomes a fight for survival, as Ashcroft cranks the heat until the knob falls off.
The Rule of Jenny Pen showcases behind-the-camera command, excellent performances, and that horror has no age limit. Geoffrey Rush plays wounded and stubborn, while John Lithgow gives himself to the mocking malevolence of a nasty hand puppet. It’s a methodical brand of fearfulness that isn’t about jump scares or unnatural forces, but that’s the point. James Ashcroft examines totalitarian meanness in places where you should feel the most protected: how one man can hold a community hostage. That’s all it takes for dictatorships to breed—followed by the act of courage that’s required to lead a retaliatory revolution.
The Rule of Jenny Pen releases in theaters on March 7, 2025.