The Rule of Jenny Pen is a merciless corkscrew horror-thriller set in an unlikely location: an assisted living facility. The protagonist, Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), is a judge who oversees criminal trials and clearly thinks very highly of his position, which we see in the opening scene when he is sentencing a criminal, but takes a moment to castigate the victim for helping to enable him. However, mid-speech he begins to suffer a series of debilitating strokes that put him in the aforementioned facility, no longer entirely in control of his body and confined to a wheelchair. In Stefan’s mind, this is only temporary, and once he regains his full motor control, he will leave it behind, which is one of the reasons he stands out so much from the other residents: He doesn’t think he belongs there and makes no attempts to befriend others or ingratiate himself.

One man who does think he belongs there is Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), a long-time resident who doesn’t seem to speak much except through a creepy, empty-eyed plastic doll that he constantly wears on his hand like a puppet named Jenny Pen. At first, he appears to be just an eccentric old man, perhaps not quite right in the head. But, when Stefan awakens late one night to find Dave sitting in the corner of his room, it becomes clear that he is definitely not right in the head, but not in the way we thought. Rather, he is a sadistic bully who pretends to be harmless by day when the well-meaning, but utterly clueless staff is watching, but in the dead of night emotionally and physically torments those who rub him the wrong way.

He takes an immediate disliking to Stefan, who, truth be told, is not particularly likable, given his pretensions and the way he considers himself better than the other residents. Dave’s sadism, which he enacts through the hollow-headed Jenny Pen, is initially directed primarily at Stefan’s roommate, a former rugby played named Tony (George Henare), but it soon shifts to Stefan, especially when Stefan, unlike Tony, refuses to capitulate to Dave’s bullying and instead fights back. As we have seen in similar stories, Stefan’s retaliations are viewed by those around him as unmotivated outbursts against an innocent fellow resident. But, we know better.

The Rule of Jenny Pen reunites New Zealand actor-turned-writer/director James Ashcroft, co-writer Eli Kent, and novelist Owen Marshall, who previously collaborated on Ashcroft’s feature debut, Coming Home in the Dark (2021). Like that film, Jenny Pen is adapted from one of Marshall’s short stories, which provides enough of a foundation to support a slow-simmering thriller that benefits substantially from the performances by Rush and Lithgow. Rush, a four-time Oscar nominee and winner for Shine (1996) who hasn’t been on screen in six years, has a special way of conveying pomp and arrogance while still suggesting enough vulnerability to make him a sympathetic victim. Lithgow, a two-time Oscar nominee who has vacillated successfully between gentle and villainous roles, gets to cut loose as the sadistic Dave, a man who inflicts pain and distress for no other apparent reason beyond his ability to do so. He has a wicked viciousness that seems to know no limits beyond what he has to do to maintain his façade, which the blithe caretakers at the facility accept without question. Make no mistake, The Rule of Jenny Pen does not paint a good portrait of elderly care, but it sure works as an escalating thriller that can only end when someone dies.

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