Hand it to ‘Jenny Pen’ for a macabre puppet show
Darkly funny and effusively creepy, “The Rule of Jenny Pen” is this generation’s “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane,” a campy horror thriller that ghoulishly reflects a real world increasingly governed by deranged bullies demanding we kiss their expansive bottoms.
In adapting a short story by Owen Marshall, co-writer-director James Ashcroft astutely entrusts his lacerating satire to the juiciest ham he could find in the marvelous John Lithgow. Fresh off his amusing Academy Awards cameo, Lithgow once again steals the show as Dave Crealy, a sociopathic puppeteer terrorizing the inhabitants of one of those “warehouses for mom” with murderous abandon. But there’s more here than meets the empty eye sockets of Dave’s menacing marionette, Jenny Pen.
Amid the chuckles and chills is a perceptive send-up of how care homes, like the one Dave terrorizes, can often seem like hellish way stations for vulnerable elders on the last leg of a journey to the afterlife. Ashcroft and co-writer Eli Kent persuasively paint it as a sphere of Dante’s Inferno, a purgatory camouflaged as a Shangri-La for the sick and dying. What renders this setting so unsettling is the very real possibility that any of us could wind up in such an institution, susceptible to the unspeakable evils of a Dave and Jenny Pen.
Although Ashcroft walks a delicate line between compassion and ridicule, he generally succeeds at generating empathy for folks who’ve lost agency and, in many cases, their mental faculties. They are breathing and taking in sustenance but no longer living, making them ideal targets for Dave and Jenny Pen to stealthily hasten their demise. Ashcroft cleverly clues us into who might be next through the perceptive Pluto, the resident service cat with a sixth sense about when a soul is set to depart. Some might interpret this aspect of Dave’s homicidal behavior as borderline merciful, in a Kevorkian sort of way. But there’s a more sinister side to Dave and the hand puppet he hides behind.
That would be the sadistic kicks the two derive from harassing fellow occupants for whom they harbor a particular dislike. People like former footballer Tony Garfield (George Henare) and his roomie, Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a merciless New Zealand hanging judge recovering from a stroke suffered while on the bench. Stefan does nothing to temper his arrogance, openly expressing disdain for all in his orbit he deems inferior, despite being in similar straits. And don’t think Dave hasn’t noticed.
He’s on the wheelchair-bound Stefan like a cheap suit, shoving Jenny Pen into his contemptuous face at every opportunity. Just think of Blanche and Baby Jane, an obvious inspiration. But I contend the mews is spookier than the mausoleum the Hudson sisters called home. And although no rat is served up for Stefan’s “din-din,” there are a plethora of comparable gross-outs. Chief among them is Dave’s nightly ritual of visiting the rooms of select denizens and demanding they express the ultimate obeisance to Jenny Pen whereupon Dave lifts the puppet’s gown, turns his hand, and insists the victims lick his wrist, or as he terms it, “Jenny’s asshole.”
What ensues is an escalating war of wits between Dave and a defiant Stefan, who fights on despite partial paralysis. Ashcroft milks the seeming mismatch for all it’s worth, as he and cinematographer Matt Henley heighten the frights by framing Dave in the most eerie of lights. And the demonic orange glow emanating from Jenny’s empty eye sockets is a particularly effective touch, as is the palpable sense of dread hovering over every corridor and inside every room, from the cafeteria to the resident lounge. Bingo, indeed! Even better is Ashcroft’s ability to coax his two principal actors into striking the exact tone between camp and genuine unease.
If there are flaws, they can be found in the flat, predictable ending, and the inconceivability that staff and administration would be so clueless as to blindly allow Dave to murder and harass with impunity. But then, isn’t that a predominant complaint about these glorified prisons – that the “caregivers” are lackadaisical at best?
That just might be the spookiest aspect of “Jenny Pen,” a candid confirmation that there’s nothing scarier than losing your autonomy. It’s enough to make you suicidal. But why go to the trouble when Dave and Jenny Pen would be only too happy to do it for you?
Movie review
The Rule of Jenny Pen
Rated: R for sexual assault, violent content and some language
Cast: John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush and George Henare
Director: James Ashcroft
Writers: James Ashcroft and Eli Kent
Runtime: 103 minutes
Where: In theaters March 7 (limited)
Grade: B
