Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are taking a look at a brand new horror movie out of New Zealand – The Rule of Jenny Pen. The story follows a group of seniors living in a care home. Finding themselves the victim of a malicious resident who torments them using a child’s puppet.

I was incredibly interested in this movie when my fiancée told me about it. The plot sounded extremely original and legitimately fascinating. James Ashcroft, who brought us the gritty hiking movie Coming Home In The Dark, was attached to direct. Offering the potential for some genuinely dark horror thrills. Throw in the fact that the movie stars John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush and I was completely sold.

A Fascinating Concept

The truth of the matter is, that there really aren’t too many horror movies focused on senior citizens. Horror is a young person’s game; what with all the running and screaming and whatnot. Explorations into those of an advanced age tend to only come in the form of dementia allegories and directors finding an excuse to “scare us” by subjecting us to elderly people in the buff.

A screenshot from Shudder horror movie The Rule of Jenny Pen (2025)

Aside from terrifying us by pointing out how we will all look when we hit our later years. Most horror movies use older people as a simple victim or a vehicle for a scare. The Rule of Jenny Pen promised something different. An entire location filled with older characters, elderly protagonists and, most intriguing of all, an elderly villain. This is something that you really don’t see that often.

Mostly Delivers

For the most part, Ashcroft delivers on his promise. Based on the short story by author Owen Marshall. The Rule of Jenny Pen takes us to an atypical location that is, somehow, more haunting and frightening than many that you see in horror. Maybe it is because of the staff who have an extremely passive attitude towards their jobs and the concerns of their residents. Perhaps it is the bleakness of the care home, with its muted colours, regimented schedule, and prison like vernacular.

Or, could it actually be the fear that many of us will find ourselves in similar surroundings at some point in our lives. Doomed to be forgotten about by the people that we never thought would push us to one side like an inconvenient burden. Who knows? But the walls of this nursing home are beyond oppressive. Making for a perfect setting for a horror movie. The tormenting of resident Dave Crealy (Lithgow) goes completely unnoticed by the staff at the home.

He walks the halls, enters rooms, uses his doll like puppet to instil fear in the residents and then moves on. One such resident, the newest addition to the place, former judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush), plays protagonist. Stefan, who recently suffered a stroke, has a keen sense of justice and no desire to lie down and take the abuse Crealy is dishing out. His ailing body affords him few chances to fight back, however, turning the movie into something of a game of wits. When The Rule Of Jenny Pen is Lithgow and Rush verbally jousting, it is at its best.

A Lot of Issues

As I mentioned earlier, it’s a great concept but there are numerous flaws that make this film difficult to buy into and enjoy. The sheer fact that our villain can just wander the halls of the care home, at all hours, feels beyond ludicrous. No staff ever intervene, no cameras are present to see what is going on, nobody believes the characters when they complain, and nobody seems to actually have any clue what is going on. Even coincidence doesn’t get a look in when it comes to Crealy’s midnight ventures to abuse fellow residents.

It feels like a tremendous leap. Even when compared to supernatural horror. When his violent tendencies extend to daytime romps of chaos in the common rooms, the simple idea of this film being believable goes completely out of the window. Crealy’s character is like an omnipotent, supercharged, version of a school yard bully. He’s really not all that imposing, either. Even when considered from a vulnerable elderly person’s point of view. There are some enormous leaps of logic taken to make Crealy seem believable and it massively undermines the story.

Slow But Often Enjoyable

On top of that, The Rule of Jenny Pen is an enormously plodding movie. I get it, it is elderly people in a care home bothering each other. But the pace of everything is glacial. One night bleeds into the next. Leading to a feeling of repetition that I would only expect to experience if I, myself, was a resident in the care home. Is this masterful movie making to help the viewer relate to the character’s sense of misery? I am not sure but it doesn’t making for entertaining viewing.

There is never any sense of escalation, either. Well, not until the latter parts of the movie where Crealy evolves from simple menace into homicidal maniac for no real reason. There is a distinct sense of desperation in the need to progress the story in a meaningful way. Pushing towards a finale that is both predictable and unsatisfying. The Rule of Jenny Pen is a strange mix of touching and really very boring and I can’t help but feel it is a shame.

There is a lot of potential, here and it is definitely not a bad film. Geoffrey Rush chews the scenery in the best possible way. Lithgow is fantastic and, at least briefly, seems legitimately quite sinister thanks to his seemingly elevated level of physical capability when compared to his care home compatriots.

There are some moments that really make you wince for how viscerally nasty they are. And the story can be fairly interesting, at times. The overall portrayal of care home residents being neglected evokes plenty of sympathy and it is easy to relate to the plight of the characters. The Rule of Jenny Penn, however, just doesn’t do enough to stay interesting or remotely believable.

Should You Watch The Rule of Jenny Pen?

I do think The Rule of Jenny Pen is worth watching. I just found myself disappointed. The concept is fantastic and the atypical location and characters make for a movie that feels pretty original. It just struggles so much with creating a genuinely effective villain and wanders off, far too frequently, into the realm of the completely absurd. Robbing the movie of tension, believability, and scares. Add on to this a glacial pace and you have a film that is something of a mixed bag. Enjoyable but very flawed.