Penny Dreadful

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 ;)

Now, this had all the elements of good horror - suspense, screams, breasts, and slashing. Not too bad for a film that takes place in the woods at night.

Penny (Rachel Miner) is traveling with her therapist (Mimi Rogers) to overcome her fear of cars after an auto accident as a child. Now, everyone knows not to pick up hitchhikers, and you should especially know not to take them into the woods, but hey, there wouldn't be a movie if they did the smart thing.

She, with a fear of cars, ends up stuck in a car with her dead therapist, and thus begins a night of horror. Dead bodies are piling up all over as she screams to get out.

I won't spoil it except to say that I really liked the ending.

And, I sure want to see some more of Tammy Filor.

The first time I saw this movie I didn't really care for it at all. I re-watched it a second time and I absolutely loved it. This movie has great suspense, terror and kills. Penny is a likable character, she is traumatized from a car accident, and is trying to get over her fears and is trying to be a regular person. Her therapist, Orianna, is taking Penny on a road-trip. It's to "Complete the Circle" and have Penny end her fears where they first began. The Hitchhiker is really creepy. He then traumatizes Penny even more throughout the film. The reason I liked this film is because first of all, it's a really good movie - if you're into this kind of film. And second because it shows how you don't a HUGE budget and big name stars in a movie for it to be good.

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!