The Rule of Jenny Pen - Film Review

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Jenny Rules When it Comes to Nightmare Fuel

There is a particular kind of horror that doesn’t rely on grotesque imagery or cheap jump scares, but instead seeps into your bones—a slow, creeping dread that clings to you for days after you've seen it. The Rule of Jenny Pen is that kind of horror film. It’s a chilling psychological battle of wills, brought to life by two powerhouse performances from Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, and set against the unsettling backdrop of an aged care facility where isolation, powerlessness, and mortality loom like spectres in the dimly lit halls.

Rush plays Stefan Mortensen, a former judge now confined to a nursing home after suffering a stroke. His body betrays him, his words fail him, and his mind, once sharp as a blade, is forced into frustrating inertia. But he is not alone in his suffering. Enter Dave Crealy, played with an unnerving mixture of menace and charm by Lithgow, a fellow resident whose frailty is merely a facade. Crealy uses a baby doll puppet named Jenny Pen as his instrument of control, weaponizing the very helplessness that defines their shared environment. He terrorises the residents around him under the guise of senility, knowing full well that no one will believe—or bother to investigate—the cruelties he inflicts.



What unfolds is a masterfully tense game of psychological chess. Stefan, despite his physical limitations, refuses to accept the unchallenged rule of Jenny Pen. But can he truly fight back when even the staff dismiss him as just another old man rattling at the bars of his inevitable decline? The film’s horror isn’t just in Crealy’s villainy, but in the societal indifference that allows it to fester. It's in the gaslighting and powerlessness that Stefan experiences.



Director James Ashcroft crafts a visually arresting film, drawing inspiration from the 'golden age of horror' in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. There’s something Hitchcockian about the way shots are framed, something Kubrickian in the meticulous, dread-laden pacing. Every scene is steeped in unease, from the sterile, impersonal corridors of the nursing home to the dimly lit rooms where Crealy lurks with Jenny Pen, always watching. The cinematography is exquisite, using light, shadow, and stillness to create an atmosphere that is as suffocating as it is mesmerising.



But beneath the horror lies a deeply human story. The Rule of Jenny Pen taps into universal fears: the inevitability of ageing, the loss of autonomy, and the quiet horror of being dismissed, patronised, and ultimately forgotten. It forces the audience to consider what it means to grow old in a society that often treats its elderly as inconvenient burdens rather than people still capable of agency, resistance, and even rebellion.

What would you do if Jenny came for you?

Would you stand up to the bully? Or would you submit to the rule of Jenny Pen? That question lingers like an unshakable whisper throughout this film. It’s disturbing and dark, occasionally unnervingly funny, with suffocating tension, exquisite performances, and eerily relevant themes. The Rule of Jenny Pen is a horror movie that doesn’t just make you afraid - it makes you think. And that is its true, enduring power.




In Select Cinemas March 20
Running Time: 105 Minutes
Rating: MA 15+

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Images supplied courtesy of Rialto Distribution