The atmosphere of an elderly care home can be sweet, a place where your loved ones live out the rest of their lives in care and comfort. However, they also can feel creepy as hell. In the case of The Rule Of Jenny Pen, it’s the creepy side. There’s something about the setting of the film that accentuates the vibes of the film. Add to that with an excellent cast that includes John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush. How do you make a movie about a puppet ruling with an iron fist into something scary? Well, let’s go over just how director/writer James Ashcroft did that.

Rush plays Stefan, a judge sent to a hospice care facility after a stroke leaves him largely paralyzed. He’s in a wheelchair in physical form but his mind is just as sharp as ever. He uses his craft as a judge in his daily life with the staff and other residents. Lithgow plays Dave, a resident who is eccentric, to say the least. He walks around all day with an eyeless baby doll hand puppet known as Jenny Pen.

As it goes on, Dave and Jenny slowly shift from a mere annoyance for Stefan into something more sinister and dark. The staff of the facility all brush off Stefan’s complaints as simply his mind playing tricks on him and the effects of his stroke.

The film splits into two distinct halves. There’s the day time which is mundane and filled with the normal stuff you’d expect out of a care home. Then there’s the nighttime. The night brings with it Dave and Jenny Pen ruling the other residents with an iron fist.

If you like something like Severance, Jenny Pen will fit in with that vibe. There’s a surreal feeling to the events of the film. There’s a very clear German Expressionist influence on the film. It’s not something like Skinamarink but it heads down that path with the settings of the film radically changing before your eyes. This goes down to the camera work where you’re never given a straight-on shot of Stefan in bed.

Everything, including the truth, feels just out of reach for Stefan and the audience. The Rule of Jenny Pen feels like a dream when it turns into a nightmare. But it switches back and forth until you don’t know what it is any longer. Think about a dream where you reach for a doorknob and see something terrifying in the reflection and it shifts on a dime.

Lithgow and Rush duke it out for who can give the best performance here. They both fill the roles with power, but Lithgow does the heavy lifting physically. This is a story of people in a care home, after all. Lithgow shines as the creepy Dave with Jenny Pen as his secret weapon. The puppet is the highlight of the film, providing the most unnerving imagery. What Lithgow does in-between moments in a scene, where he shifts his performance, is mindblowing.

The Rule Of Jenny Pen is not easy to watch. It’s not even a fun watch at times. It captures the problems with a society that wants to turn away from the elderly instead of dealing with them head-on. The movie might turn off some viewers with just how strange and weird the camera work gets. It feels like it doesn’t know whether its a commentary or a parody at times, or both. That’s what stood out to me about the film was that there are these different planes of existence almost. LIke the day-night feeling of the film, watching it carries that across.

You’re really here to watch John Lithgow go insane on screen and the horrors that unfold. The Rule of Jenny Pen is a movie that will stick with you long after you’re done watching it. It’s cerebral, creepy, and thought-provoking.

The Rule of Jenny Pen releases in theaters on March 7th, 2025.

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