The Rule of Jenny Pen review: John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush go psycho-biddy

It's time for horror fans to get to know James Ashcroft. The New Zealand actor turned writer/director awed critics in 2021 with Coming Home in the Dark, a movie so scary that it literally knocked me out of my seat. Now, he's back with a sophisticated yet elegantly demented follow-up, The Rule of Jenny Pen, a psycho-biddy thriller that pits heralded actors John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush against each other in a deranged battle of wills. 

Traditionally, this horror subgenre — which is also referred to as hagsploitation and includes classics like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? — centers on an aging woman who is so isolated that she's become mentally unstable, and a threat to any who crosses her path. This distinctly disturbing subgenre is often used to explore the way aging women are disregarded by society, to our peril. Essentially, though aging and forgotten, these women still carry the power to torment or even kill. It might even be viewed that their petty grievances and gnarly obsessions are what keeps them alive. With The Rule of Jenny Pen, Ashcroft places men in a psycho-biddy scenario, reflecting how some horrors of aging aren't reserved just for women.

This makes for a movie that is in turn manic, eerie, disturbing, and shocking. It's little wonder The Rule of Jenny Pen has been praised by icon of horror Stephen King as "one of the best movies I've seen." 

The Rule of Jenny Pen hauntingly echoes What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush stars as Judge Stefan Mortensen, who uses his bench not only to determine justice but also to morally reprimand the defendants who come before his snarling gaze. That is, until a near-fatal stroke forces him into a retirement home. Partially paralyzed, the judge must use a wheelchair and depend on the care workers for some of his more intimate needs. While he's insistent this is temporary, just until he can recover, a creeping dread suggests there is no escape from his failing body and this institution dedicated to housing — and hiding away — the old and infirm. 

Notably, Ashcroft paints the retirement facility itself as a cheery place, portrayed in cool pink tones, where the residents are offered a variety of activities from games to dancing, and the caregivers are devoted and kind, if not always receptive. The horror creeps in with the introduction of Dave Crealy, played two-time Academy Award nominee John Lithgow. A longtime resident of the facility, Crealy is regarded by the caregivers as a jolly eccentric who laughs loudly, loves to sing and dance, and treasures his dolly, an eyeless hand puppet he calls Jenny Pen. But when they're not looking, Crealy is a brutal bully, tormenting the other residents through intimidation, violence, and humiliation. But he may have met his match in the proud Mortensen. 

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John Lithgow is a terrific terror in The Rule of Jenny Pen. 

Known for everything from 3rd Rock From the Sun to Trial & Error to Conclave, Lithgow has long been an actor who can leap from comedy to drama without missing a step. Here, Lithgow's natural height of 6'4" is brilliantly used to have Crealy tower over Mortensen, who uses a wheelchair that he feels showcases his infirmity. In an interview with Mashable, Lithgow, who executive produced alongside Rush, shared how he sought out silvery contact lenses and gnarly prosthetic teeth to build his concept of Crealy, adding on a scruffy beard for good measure. The effect is realistic and unnerving, transforming the beloved performer's face into something just off of what we've come to know. His smile becomes more easily menacing, his stare sharper and colder. 

When Crealy begins creeping into Mortensen's room at night to harass him, he carries an eerie stillness, like a tiger stalking its prey. The contrast between the tall man and the small, battered puppet is unnerving on its own. But Ashcroft amplifies the energy of malice by slicing through his daytime color palette of pinks with a giallo red, punctuated by sharp lines or quick cuts that turn this everyday setting into a surreal prison. This perturbing posturing is what Crealy effects as he abuses his fellow residents, forcing them into embarrassing submission or tugging mercilessly on catheters. Yet Crealy is at his most frightening during the day, in plain sight. 

There, where any aide or resident might see, he taunts the judge with a song and dance. The tune itself is a Cockney pub song, "Knees Up Mother Brown." And Crealy sings it with the enthusiasm that its name might suggest. But Crealy's focus, as he lifts his knees high and sings loudly, is to rub in Mortensen's face his mobility, his autonomy, his power. Because of course Mortensen has reported Crealy to the carers, but who could believe such a jovial old fool could be as cruel as described? This song then becomes about Crealy pouring salt into the wounds he's already inflicted. With a love of cheerful performance (and his own version of "I've Written a Letter to Daddy"), Crealy is a mercurial Baby Jane Hudson to Mortensen's Blanche (Joan Crawford), who also uses a wheelchair in Baby Jane. However, Mortensen hasn't been battered down by decades of abuse and guilt, and so will fight back in his own way. And the results are sensational and scary. 

The Rule of Jenny Pen unblinklingly reveals the indignities of aging. 

The titular puppet is suitably creepy. The man who wields her like a weapon is enchantingly horrifying. But the most penetrating terror of The Rule of Jenny Pen is that Crealy's campaign of abuse can exist at all. In the opening scene, Mortensen is presented as a man infallible, with the power of privilege, respect, and status. But one stroke and he is struck down, losing his autonomy because of his disability. More than that, he loses his voice because of the agism that urges society to ignore the elderly. 

Mortensen is ignored like the pleas for love or attention of any psycho-biddy. His claims about Crealy written off with a banal smile from a caregiver more determined to clean him up than hear him out. Desperate to not lose himself to this wall of ignorance, Mortensen does battle with his bully. But like Coming Home in the Dark, Ashcroft sets up a story that can have no happy ending. For there is no escape from the decay aging brings, not only psychically but also psychologically and — perhaps most crucially — socially. 

Like in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? someone will lose this battle of wills, but no one will win. And in that, The Rule of Jenny Pen leaves us with a harrowing final image, simple yet unforgettable. In the end, The Rule of Jenny Pen becomes not just a frightening warning but also a haunting call for empathy — a memento mori of sorts, reminding the viewer, "As I am, you will be."

The Rule of Jenny Pen opens in theaters March 7.

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