After suffering a stroke, a former judge is admitted to a nursing home where a psychopath terrorises the patients.
Great notion and amazing performances. The Rule of Jenny Pen is a stripped-down, low-budget, single-location horror that projects a crucial truth: the most unsettling terror rarely needs monsters, blood, or elaborate mythology. A locked door, a shared corridor, and time will do.
Writer Eli Kent, co-writer/director James Ashcroft, IFC Films and Shudder construct a slow-burning mystery/thriller set almost entirely within a nursing home, where dignity quietly erodes alongside the body. At its centre is an old man defined by pride – intellectual, moral, personal – who finds himself hospitalised and abruptly stripped of authority, independence, and identity. What follows is not a sudden collapse, but a gradual, humiliating unravelling.
Opposite him stands the film’s true horror: another resident, physically stronger, disturbingly lucid, and utterly unbound by empathy. This man rules the home through psychological cruelty, exploiting weakness not out of survival, but pleasure. His presence accelerates the degradation already built into the system, transforming neglect into something actively malevolent.
Three distinct horrors operate simultaneously. First, tyranny – emerging not in grand political systems, but in places designed for care. Second, the baffling incompetence and indifference of those tasked with protecting the vulnerable, whose absence feels as threatening as any antagonist. And finally, the most frightening truth of all: the inevitable decay of mind, body, and spirit. No villain is required for that. As said, time will do.
Geoffrey Rush, John Lithgow, and George Henare deliver performances of remarkable restraint. Lithgow, in particular, is deeply unsettling and shocking to the core! His villain is historically familiar, recognisable, and therefore impossible to dismiss.
What is not shocking is that his performance slipped past major festivals unnoticed. The film offers no comforting metaphors, no fashionable outrage, and no political packaging. Is this why? The festivals maintain their political trajectory, achieving more and more of their agendas, excluding performances such as this, leaving people to lose more and more faith in institutions that should be awarding merit alone.
The Rule of Jenny Pen is highly recommended for horror fans willing to face a sobering possibility: this is not a story about “them.” It may well be a glimpse of where we are all headed.
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