Penny Dreadful

Penny Dreadful: written and Directed By Bryan Norton. Starring Emily Vaughan, Sebastian Lacause, Tina Krause, Peter Dupre and Betsy Palmer. Screenin Date: Oct 26, 2005

***1/2 out of **** stars

'Penny Dreadful' is old fashioned haunted house movie that will most probably please connoisseurs of the genre. While it hardly breaks new ground, the film is at times funny, scary and violent. There are subtle references to other films, such as "Don't Look Now" and "The Haunting of Julia". Betsy Palmer (Mrs. Voorhees from the original Friday the 13th) comes to investigate a seemingly haunted New York City townhouse inherited by a handsome couple Jessica and David Clausen(Emily Vaughn and Sebastian Lacause). Is the house possessed or is poor Jessica losing her mind from repressed guilt of a secret abortion from years before? Just when you think you've figured it out, you haven't. The acting, score and cinematography are first rate.

Penny Dreadful is a somewhat simple ghost story with some very unique twists. What makes the film so charming though, is the gathering of many horror icons, like Betsy Palmer as a doddery old psychic, Peter Dupree as a sleazy real estate agent, and Warrington Gillette. Tina Krause also shows up, but has no nude scenes, which lowered the rating of the film marginally.

Also, since it's a short, it doesn't suffer from the usual slow plodding found in most ghost stories.

One aspect that makes PD unique, is the reaction of the main character when she realizes that her and her husband are living in a "haunted house". Instead of the usual freaking out and every one assuming she's crazy, she's excited by the aspect of living with ghosts and embraces it. Very different.

An overall well crafted film.

Synopis: Jessica and David Clausen (Emily Vaughan and Sebastian Lacause) are a young married couple that inherit a beautiful brownstone townhouse in the West Village from Jessica's long lost Aunt. The couple is shown the empty house by an estate attorney (Peter Dupre) who delivers some bad about inheritance tax on the property. Jessica and David, in short, can't keep the house. The couple do, however, move in temporarily, as the agent promises to line up a few buyers. Slowly, Jessica experiences strange occurrences in the house. Noises from downstairs, a blonde child in a red sweater (John Thompson) looking at her from the front window. Instead of being scared off, Jessica embraces it. David, too busy with medical school to care, humors her. Jessica's friend Marla (Tina Krause) dismisses her claims that the house is haunted thinking instead it's some sort of repressed guilt. But is the house trying to tell her something? She enlists the aid of Trudie (Betsy Palmer), a dotty local psychic to figure out what's happening. Review: Right at this moment, the best way for me to describe my feelings on "Penny Dreadful" is that it is cutely, immensely sad. The inclusion of "cutely" there may appear... strange. While this movie was chilling in certain parts, the ultimate feeling it conveys (to me) is some sense of a heavenly, sad and beautiful evil. And also that feeling of how separated from the rest of the world the core story is, it's like an own universe where everything is about someone passing through time in darkness. The story is complex and moving,the acting is very good (Emily Vaughan is very understated and very good in the lead role),the direction is elegant, the sets and locations perfectly fit the mood of the film. I must add that the ending is one of the most stunning and PERFECT ever,in every ways (direction,cinematography,acting,music)! To sum up: this film is sad, chilling, haunting and yes, in some ways, moving. I have read a review that criticized the film's slow pace: I, for one, especially appreciate the Director's willingness to take time to build suspense and terror. I believe that silence is an important part of a horror movie (perhaps almost every kind of movie) and it's obvious that the Director shares my appreciation for what's NOT said. What a treat this turned out to be. If you judge a movie based on blood and guts, or CGI effects, you won't care for this. This film is a much more cerebral movie, which requires multiple viewings to take it in fully

The much hyped short "Penny Dreadful" comes to DVD finally after endless reports and tidbits posted on every horror website and magazine since 2005. But is it worth the wait? Well, the answer is YES....and no. The movie itself is a neat little thriller, so sweet and nice at first, ugly and mean spirited in it's final moments. Tech specs are top notch and the cast of genre vets, including the underrated Betsy Palmer, fill their roles with aplomb. The "no" comes in because I wanted more. A few short extras on the DVD to a 30 minute program do not a DVD make. The Betsy Palmer featurette is nice, but there are no subtitles, close captioning options or other languages to choose from. Final score: Movie :10 Final score: DVD : 7

When it comes down to reviewing a film you've got sit down and look at more than a few things. Were all the characters developed thoroughly, was the story interesting – original, the logic of the film and its situations, etc. In a regular 90 minute film, it's hard to get all of this in and get it right on the money. In a short film, it's much worse. Instead of a full hour and a half or more, you now have less than an hour to put all of these elements – or at least a few of them – and still have everything turn out to well. Upon sitting down to review Penny Dreadful I knew five things, one this was a short film, two it had a lot of rave reviews from festivals and online sites alike, three it was a ghost story, four there was another film out there sharing the same title and five; it had Betsy Palmer in it. Other than that, my mind was pretty much a clean slate. The film starts off with our main character Jessica, along with her husband, has just inherited a house her aunt left them in her estate. Due to some taxing law in the state of New York they cannot keep the house and have to sell it but decide to live there while waiting for it to come off the market. While in the house Jessica starts to see apparitions of the paranormal kind and immediately decides the home is haunted. Dismissing the spirit of that of just a playful child Jessica soon begins to unravel a mystery of dire consequences leading to the story's shocking conclusion. I was surprised after watching this one. I heard many mixed things about it and most that were going in the film's favor say it worked as a short. Me, I think it needed a lot more fleshing out. The story was more than interesting, the characters were likable and the acting was above average. This film just screamed to be longer but only clocked in at under a half an hour. I liked the film for what it was but could see a lot more being done with it. The entire film felt too rushed and Betsy Palmer's character was underused. All of the film's characters seemed like there were underused. Everyone could've been built on more as well as the film's story. But I have to commemorate the filmmakers for doing their best on the short film as the final product is no schlep of a film, it's actually rather good. One would not complain a short film was too short if they didn't like what they saw and wanted to see more. I'm sure you have figured that out on your own though there haven't you? Yeah, you smart ass. Anyways, the film works in the areas it's supposed to. It manages to hold onto the viewer and keep a firm icy grasp within its short running time. I could imagine this happening even if the film was longer because as I said, in its short run – it is a very well done, creepy little film. My only real complaint, aside from it being too short, was the lack of use of Betsy Palmer's character. She's only in the film for a better time of 5 minutes or so then is quickly rushed off screen while everyone else continues on. Not that anyone else in the film was bad; I just felt that Betsy's character could have been used more in the story. One of the major things I have to point out in this film was the way it was shot. It looks so much like an old school Canadian horror film from back in the 70's its amazing. From what I understand this is what the director of the film was going for and I must address that they pulled that off and with flying colors to boot. The film builds up a lot of suspense in its shots of the long dark hallways, in the empty rooms as Jessica explores the house after hearing strange noises for the first time. All of it fits together very nicely and works well. Penny Dreadful is no classic film by any means, but it never tries to be. All it ever tries to do is be a smart and original ghost story with one hell of a twist which it pulls off wonderfully. Director Bryan Norton is now a well known horror fan who manages to incorporate several of horror's biggest franchise stars, hey where else can you see the original Mrs. Voorhees in the same film as the first man to play her grown son? That's what I thought.