Penance Lane - Haus der Qualen

So, Triple-H plays an ex-con as usual.... no, wait. That's not Triple-H... hmmm... so this film with Booker T and DDP making cameos has a lead role played by someone playing Triple-H as an ex-con who on his release heads to a town where he has a motive to find some hidden money Booker Ts brother hid their a decade prior (Its not Stevie Ray, mustve been a third brother?) He gets hired by Bo Duke who has forgotten about racing The General Lee and become a preacher who happens to own the house and hires the fake Triple-H to fix it up. Only fake Triple-H discovers the house has some hidden occupants.

I'd say the script writer wanted to make a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, got rejected and re-wrote it to not be the characters of TCM, but figured making the Leather Face character a female would surely be a way to hide his original script plan to get this made.

Fake-H then makes friends with a girl who feels some unknown reason to stick to him like flies to ... dung... and when the dung hits the fan she ends up in it as deep as he is as they have to fight for survival.

I wouldn't really call this a horror. It takes a few elements of past horror looking characters and enters them in a small TCM style plot, but it soon becomes more of a typical action movie. The done to death scenario where some guy is just so brave and tough that he plans to just leave the trouble, but feels it's his duty to go back and protect the girl and kill the bad guys to save the day kinda thing.

It's no tribute to old-school horror, those reviews are obvious fakes that plague Imdb these days.

It's ok for one viewing, but it's a once seen, you'll never have an urge to see it ever again deal.

See it, don't see it, you decide, but you're not missing anything special.

What starts as a good premise and makes you think you're in for a good ghost/haunted house with a twist, takes a wrong turn in the middle towards ridiculousness and cliché galore. The story makes absolutely no sense at all and the worst of it, is not even mildly entertaining. The good reviews must be fake or written by 12 year old kids.

There are a few good things that happen in Penance Lane, a plot that develops, good cast, acting but the lack of budget will make a mark in the end.

This is definitely not something to recommend even for the average horror fan, because it is a step lower than your usual, not quite entertaining but does has a story to it, and it doesn't reveal itself from the very start. So, as the plot thickens you get to watch a movie, one that grows right in front of your eyes, but as expected, shortly after it becomes a clichee. Now, all in all I would say this is a fair effort, from the actors, to the execution, but only as an early production of such kind, because as I said before, it is not something I would tell others about.

I rated it a 4 because I strongly believe it is the best it could do regarding the budget, I do admire the way Penance Lane developed, but it is what it is. There are plenty of other better indie productions our there, so you decide what you going to watch next.

Cheers!

No way in the world should this be any higher than a 3. The acting is NOT worthy of a 6. That's just ridiculous.

...stayed for Scout Taylor Compton. If Scout is in a movie then it's worth at least a 5.

Having said that, that's as far as I can go for this one. The plot is weak and most of the acting is bland. It was more action than it was horror and that would be okay if the action was put together well but it wasn't.

The ending manages to pick up and improve just a little bit but it never really manages to find its footing and that's unfortunate because there is something decent hidden in this mess.

I didn't feel like it was a complete waste of time, but it didn't leave me satisfied either.