Penny Dreadful

PD misses a lot of opportunities to scare or even freak you out. It has a great set-up, a devilishly simple set (mostly one car) and a bad guy who likes people-ka-bobs... so the scares are a sure thing...right? Nope. Unfortunately for the stellar cast, the movie makes every necessary effort to ruin surprises, cut to the wrong camera shot at the climactic moment, and follow every scary movie cliché there is. We have the "anybody there" moments, the "is that you" line every time the character speaks, the lovers doing it in the back and the great supporting cast that has no use but to fill body bags. Horror for horror sake is a good thing, but this film doesn't capitalize on its confined claustrophobic space, nor does it keep the tension that it could have. Camera shots are cool, but over used and usually not in the right spaces. Even the final scary sequence fails to deliver, ending mid-scene as if the writer forgot to finish it. There is no bang. Mimi Rogers is wasted, as is most of the cast. The main character Penny does a good job, reacts wonderfully... even when there is nothing scary even going on. Without any offense to the actors, or movies in which are set in one location (I love those) this movie is not worth the full price. I saw it to support the Horror fest national film festival... a suggestion for next year... how about a group rate (all 8 movies for one admission?).

I did like this film quite a lot (even though I have only given it 6/10). It's very tense and does send chills up your spine. The acting is very good, the storyline is imaginative but somehow I have this feeling, that it could've been so much better.

It's basically about a young girl who has a phobia of riding in cars (known as Amaxophobia) ever since her parents died tragically in a car accident when she was very young. Now, older, she must go back to where it happened with her psychiatrist to overcome her fears...this is her last step in her "program".

On route to this place, they hit a hitch-hiker and her psychiatrist feels so bad about this she decides to give them a lift, much to Penny's disapproval. They introduce themselves and Penny soon tells the hitch-hiker why they are travelling to the mountains (to overcome her fear of riding in cars).

When the hitch-hiker gets to their destination...thats when things start to go really bad. It's a tense and chilling roller-coaster from this point on and the acting from Penny is brilliant! However, there are times when you think to yourself "get on with it"...but in Penny's situation...you will understand why she doesn't! I would recommend seeing this as it is a good movie. But don't expect much gore, or horror. It's more of a thriller.

Always remember never tell a stranger ANYTHING about yourself ;)

Penny Deerborn (Rachel Miner) and her therapist, Orianna Volkes (Mimi Rogers) take a trip to help Penny overcome her fear of cars. But as with any horror film, things go wrong and the car they are traveling in ends up becoming a prison for Penny (wedged between two trees). Oh, and there's also a serial killer loose in the woods.

What is going to be the real deal-maker (or breaker) for this film is if the audience can relate to Penny's fear of cars. Roughly an hour of the film has her in the car by herself being scared. Not much of a plot, or much dialog -- just the actress and her expressions of fear. Many viewers will find this intensely boring. I, however, could relate quite well with this (as someone with anxiety, I often experience attacks in cars and can put myself in her shoes -- if I had been Penny, I would have been much less brave).

Rachel Miner deserves full credit for being amazing. I was not really familiar with her before this, though her name was somewhat known. She seems to have a very solid range, if this movie is any example -- she was asked to carry a film all on her own with no characters to talk to. And in my opinion, she did it.

Mimi Rogers (the former Mrs. Tom Cruise) also plays a unique role. As a corpse. I think that deserves some credit, too, as even acting dead must take some skills -- never really moving or breathing on camera. Definitely a new direction for Rogers.

Secondary characters were nice, if for no other reason than to round out the film... and I loved the visuals... the colors of the dark, snowy mountains. I don't know much about cameras, but I like the way the light was filtered to give it this dark, lonely look. Very good move.

I say check this one out. It may not be for you -- it might bore you to tears. So if you think you're one of those, don't watch it late at night when you're about to take a nap. If you have any sort of anxiety or claustrophobia, I think you'll get a lot more out of this one. And as long as everyone just ignores how conveniently coincidental the whole plot is, we'll be fine.

Quite a large number of people recommended "Penny Dreadful" to me recently, and even though it's definitely not a terrible little film, I sure wished the descriptions of the story would have been a bit more accurate and the film itself would have been a tiny bit better. It's really not a horrific thriller in the tradition of "The Hitcher" simply because it features a maniacal hitch-hiker and it's definitely not reminiscent of "Wrong Turn" because it is set in the woods. "Penny Dreadful" is not much more than a simplistic backwoods slasher with a couple of ambitious themes (like the childhood traumas & phobias) and a couple clever and effective low-budget cinema tricks, like a minimum of filming locations. Adorable young Penny witnessed her parents dying in a car crash at young age. Ever since that day she's petrified of cars and that phobia prevents her from building up a normal life, for example dating the hunk in her apartment block. When the movie starts, she and her psychiatrist (Mimi Rogers) are driving towards the place where the accident happened, to get therapeutic closure once and for all. But Penny's fear for cars will get a lot worse before it gets better, because the two women pick up a sinister and uncanny hitch-hiker. The individual behaves odd but harmless at first, even offering the ladies a tasty-looking kebab, but pretty soon Penny is locked inside the car and trapped between two trees, and with her phobia of cars that is really not a nice place to hang out. "Penny Dreadful" benefices from an overall unsettling atmosphere and a couple of nail-biting suspense sequences, but the film is too long and it's impossible for director Richard Brandes to hold the viewer's attention throughout the entire playtime. Perhaps the film, and particularly the scares, would have worked better in a short format, like an episode of "Masters of Horror" or something. Now several scenes feel dragged and tedious. The denouement is rather stupid and only confirms that "Penny Dreadful" is just an average by-the-numbers slasher, because all the mystery surrounding the murderous hitcher has suddenly vanished. It's not a very gory movie, but the few make-up effects are competently achieved and quite freaky. The cinematography is probably the best aspect of the entire movie, as Joplin Wu's camera makes the ominous woods at night look even more menacing and inescapable than they already are.

Horror happens always at night, in abandoned places, when no one is around to help, to see, to witness. Horror happens to only a few of us, the ones who are innocent already, the ones who are weak, the ones who are helpless. It seems that evil is a coward-entity, chickens out on places with many people and strong people and real adversaries. Evil is simply afraid, mushy, and has no integrity whatsoever. May that be how it is, Penny Dreadful is a film where this happens exactly by the book. By this I don't mean to put the film down. In the contrary. PD is an awesome story about to helpless women caught in the darkness, alone, and exposed to evil, or en evil entity. I had a great time watching this film and it scared the crap out of me. I love Mimi Rogers and felt the whole cast was doing a great job. I recommend this film to anyone and hopefully it will come out on DVD and I'll get me a copy of it. Go see it, it is scary!