by Jacob Kinman, Contributing Writer
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with puppets.
On the one hand (pun intended), puppets are a huge part of my childhood nostalgia, stemming from seminal programs like Sesame Street, The Puzzle Place, Between the Lions, and The Muppet Show. When crafted with artistry and intention, like Jim Henson and his disciples have done for decades, they can be friendly and comforting figures that teach us valuable lessons and make us laugh.
Adjust a few facial features and lighting sources, and you’ve got straight up nightmare fuel.
I think the first puppet that really scared me was on the cover of the Goosebumps book “Night of the Living Dummy”, which is obviously illustrated to be terrifying, but this one really stuck with me; I was officially terrified of ventriloquist dummies and creepy puppets forever. It perplexed me, really. How could something so innocent be made into something so evil? Would I be scared of Kermit or Elmo if they were made to look this way? Surely there will never be a creepier puppet! Or so I thought, until I saw The Rule of Jenny Pen.
Based on a short story of the same name, The Rule of Jenny Pen is directed and co-written by James Ashcroft and stars acting legends Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow. They are surrounded by a cast of New Zealand natives, being that the film was shot there entirely. Rush plays Stefan Mortenson, a judge who is placed in a nursing home after suffering a stroke during court. He shares a room with Tony Garfield (George Henare), a former famous rugby player riddled with injuries from his career. Among the residents there is a man named Dave Crealy (Lithgow) who always has a puppet of a baby doll with no eyes named Jenny Pen and is seen initially by Stefan as one of the more feeble minded residents in the home.
Stefan soon discovers that Dave is much more evil than he leads on and witnesses him torment the other residents with his puppet. Dave even has a nightly ritual of abusing Tony by coming to his bedside, assaulting him, and forcing him to lick his puppet friend’s butthole, also known as the back of his hand. Yes, you read that correctly.
Stefan eventually receives Dave’s wrath firsthand when he is assaulted with a bottle of his own urine in the night while he lies in bed. Stefan is pushed to the point of fighting back by disabling all of Dave’s inhalers, but this is unsuccessful and Dave continues his reign of terror. This inspires Tony to stand up to Dave after years of torment and the two come together to put an end to the titular rule of Jenny Pen.
I do want to emphasize how great the two lead performances are. Rush portrays Stefan as a man who is determined to maintain his dignity and self-respect in spite of all his challenges, and plays it with a sense of gravitas. Lithgow is simply swinging for the fences in this role, and an actor with his range can actually pull off something so absurd very well, with its own sense of depth. The supporting actors are doing good work as well, especially Henare who conveys someone who used to be so strong, and has been weakened by time and trauma. Also, there’s lots of great Kiwi accents from the nurses and some of the residents, which is always delightful.
As a whole, Jenny Pen does not rule, and ends up being a bit disjointed and dissatisfying. The film sets something up around the second act where Stefan looks at old pictures on the wall and realizes that Dave used to work at this same nursing home, going all the way back to the sixties. What we’re not told is how he ended up becoming a resident or if anyone at the nursing home even knows about his past. Give me half an hour more that tells us exactly what Dave’s backstory is and why in Big Bird’s name he ended up this way! You’re just left feeling dirty and unsettled with the whole thing, which brings me back to puppets. Jenny Pen is one ugly baby. The way Lithgow uses the puppet, not to mention the design of it, was quite disturbing. At one point, Dave goes all-out bonkers and repeatedly hits one of the residents with the doll while gibbering like a madman and in that moment, I was both highly uncomfortable and very taken with Lithgow’s performance, which basically sums up my feelings for this movie all in one scene.
Of course, I realize that the design of the puppet and the way that it’s used is intentional. This is a psychological horror film, after all, and Jenny Pen is used to psychologically horrific effect. There are some who might watch something like this and be delighted in its weirdness and cringe factor, so it’s not to say the film doesn’t have an audience. It also doesn’t look bad and uses a lot of camera techniques to portray the creepiness of Dave and his little friend pretty well. I can see how it would work objectively, but ultimately this movie just wasn’t for me. I didn’t hate it, and the two acting titans carrying the film kept me interested, but it didn’t really pull my strings.
Can you tell me how to get back to Sesame Street?
Rating: It Was Just Okay
The Rule of Jenny Pen is available to stream now on Shudder.
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