Simply A Masterpiece

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Taking place largely inside a car, "Penny Dreadful" is an above average modern fright flick that gets by due to its successful exploitation of common human fears: fear of the dark, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of strangers, what have you. It's often genuinely spooky, creating the kind of overwhelming atmosphere you can usually only get in the most isolated of environments.Rachel Miner stars as Penny Deerborn, a young woman who's had a morbid fear of being inside cars ever since a traumatic childhood accident. Now, her therapist, Orianna Volkes (Mimi Rogers), is driving her to some snowy mountain wilderness. Along the way, they bump into a hitchhiker (Liz Davies) who never utters an audible word. After dropping the person off at their supposed destination, the terror really begins for them, as this mysterious sadist proceeds to put Penny through pure Hell.The screenplay gets no points for originality; it's what director Richard Brandes does with the material that counts. We often feel as if we're trapped inside that car with Penny, and Miner does such a good job of being terrified and panicky, it automatically raises the stress level of the audience as well. Brandes and company do well to keep the killer as mysterious as possible (it is an amusing change of pace to have such a character be played by a woman). Therefore, it's inevitable that the movie loses a little something in the final act when it gives the killer some actual dialogue, and shows their face a little too much."Penny Dreadful" often rests on Miners' capable shoulders, and she makes Penny sympathetic - and eventually proactive enough to not completely grate on some viewers' nerves. Rogers has a warm and practical presence as her travelling companion, and does a fine enough job of playing dead for much of the running time. Mickey Jones and Chad Todhunter co-star as two locals / potential saviours, Davies is creepy as hell as the villain, and the cameo by veteran cult actor Michael Berryman is highly appreciated.Overall, a commendable, solid effort, certain to appeal to genre fans, and complete with a very obvious message of the need for all of us to face our fears head-on.Seven out of 10.

I consider myself a horror fan, and to be honest, the most horrific thing about this film are the ratings and reviews given by some other very enthusiastic viewers here. To me, it was dreadfully long, and dreadfully incoherent.Consider this example scenario, which gives you an idea of the yawn-inducing pace this film has:Girl in car in dark woods at night, with the body of a murdered psychologist in the backseat, herself cuddled up in the driver's seat, can't get out, crazy murderer's been doing stuff around the car to freak her out.Suddenly, a car horn is heard (other people are making out in another car nearby):*Honk*Girl's thoughts as communicated through facial expressions, "What's that?"*Honk, honk*"Was that a horn?"*Honk, honk, honk*"Better get up!"*Honk, honk*"No wait, I think I heard something!"*Hooonk*"Was that a horn?"*Honk, honk*"Oh my God, a car?!?"*Honk, honk, honk*"I think I better get up"*Honk, honk*Gets up, "Maybe there's someone else in the forest?"*Hoooonk*"What WAS that?"*Honk, honk*"Is that a car?"*Honk, honk*"What's that?"*Hoooonk*"Oh my God, I'm so scared!"*Honk, honk, honk*"Is that a car?"*Honk, honk*"What was THAT?!"Every scene in this empty, empty movie goes on and on like this with inane and mind-numbing repetitiveness. The main character, Penny, is constantly crying or sobbing and completely incapable of doing anything on her own. The character build-up is only exactly enough to support the extremely simple storyline, providing absolutely no insight to the inner workings of any of the characters, except perhaps that by the end of the movie we know that the murderer likes meat on a stick and Penny likes apples. To be honest, if it weren't for the name of the movie, I'd have no clue what the name of the main character was. There's only just about enough story material in this movie to sustain the music video for your typical, two-and-a-half minute Beatles track.To illustrate the incoherence and sloppiness in script writing, consider this stupendously dumb scene, in which a guy actually stumbles upon Penny inside the car stuck between two trees. He flashes a light inside the car, on Penny and the dead psychologist, now in the backseat, and Penny begs for his help in getting her out and escape the attacker that killed "Orianna", the psychologist in the backseat.The easily-could-be savior walks around in front of the car, flashing his light here and there, scratching his head, before returning to the side window stating that he can't help, the car's stuck, he'll need to get some help.Now, as admirable and important as being a law-abiding citizen may be, I think we would all agree that no judge would send a guy to jail for picking up a stone from the ground and bashing in a window on an old BMW to save a girl from a psychopath killer who's already done away with a lady in the backseat. But maybe the "savior" is simply retarded or deaf.In either case, when Penny responds to his surprising statement with, "No, please don't, he's gonna kill me!", the dumbfounded guy startled gasps, "What!? Who?". Well, my dear friend, perhaps the same guy that she told you about just 20 seconds ago, the guy who left the corpse that you examined with your flashlight — the lady in the back, remember? You know, she said, "Please, please, he's out there somewhere, you have to help me", and then you said, "Wh-who? Who's out here?", then she said, "The attacker, he killed Orianna", and then you turned around, startled, making sure he was not behind you. Remember that? Maybe that's the guy she's talking about now, 20 seconds later.The wonderful charisma of Mimi Rogers and the impressive acting of an ever- sobbing Rachel Miner, considering the terrible wreck of a script, are the only positive things about this marvelously crappy 1-and-a-half hour time stealer.

.....but who don't like sleepovers with college girls? I'm rating this a low 3 based on the fact that I don't like movies that are isolated, I prefer landscapes. Secondly the choices of the actresses are predictable/annoying and that would set perfectly for a bunch of hormonious late teen girls having a sleepover.For me, I have to take a couple of naps to finish this, it just doesn't move along for me to keep my attention all the way through.It does have some decent brief moments of splatter/gore though.

If you make a film with the word 'dreadful' in the title, and your film is dreadful, you've really got to expect that a lot of the reviews for the film will express that very adjective; and I really cant think of a better way to describe 'Penny Dreadful' than the second word of its title. I'm all for horror films that try to be original and don't follow an obvious and often done plot line. As a result, a film about someone with a phobia of cars actually sounded promising; but unfortunately the director has opted to pepper the film with clichés, which cancels out any originality. The plot focuses on two women travelling through America in a car. One of them is Penny Deerborn; a young girl who suffers from the fear or cars, and the other is Orianna Volkes - her psychologist. Rather than simply prescribe a bike, Orianna decides that the best medicine for someone who is afraid of cars is to travel many miles to the place where her mother died, in a car. Brilliant! Naturally this pea-brained scheme goes wrong, and young Penny ends up in a nightmarish situation.The majority of this film involves the young girl trapped inside the car. The idea of someone being trapped and intensely frightened could easily lead to a good horror movie; but here it just isn't interesting and the result of that is that we simply don't care about anything that is happening in the film. The script doesn't allow either of the central characters to be made interesting and when the bulk of the film relies on one of them in particular; that really is a large problem. Rachel Miner takes the lead role and actually doesn't do too badly with the material she's given, and starring opposite her is Mimi Rogers as the psychologist with the silly plan, who also does OK. The film doesn't have a lot of variety in terms of the locations used; most of it takes place inside a car anyway. The film really just drones on for most of the running time and it all boils down to a stupid ending. Overall, this is really just a missed opportunity as with better handling, Penny Dreadful could at least have been decent. Oh well...just add it to the long list of dull modern horror films instead.