THE RULE OF JENNY PEN

Here's the decision in full. Director James Ashcroft has made a nearly flawless psychological horror movie — two gripping hours of atmospheric dread, anchored by tour-de-force performances from Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow. The writing and direction keep you riveted, and beneath the terror runs a genuinely moral story: a broken man risks his life to save himself and others from a wicked bully.

It also earns its R rating. Dave's reign of terror is often difficult to watch — casual cruelty by day, sneaking, torturing, and humiliating helpless residents by night. Much of the worst violence is implied or cut away, and the profanity is used sparingly rather than endlessly, but this is upsetting material: catheter torture, a woman abandoned in the woods, a villain who sexually menaces the helpless and forces people to degrade themselves before a puppet.

So: if you're an adult who appreciates masterful filmmaking and can sit with intense, disturbing horror without harm to your conscience, this one delivers. If you're choosing for children or young teens, choose something else.

Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) is a harsh New Zealand courtroom judge who suffers a stroke mid-trial and is whisked away to an assisted-living facility for long-term therapy. Proud and brusque, he keeps his distance from his fellow residents.

But he can't ignore Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), a strange man who seems to hold a dark power over the community — fits of maniacal laughter, casual cruelty, and a plastic baby-doll puppet named Jenny Pen that he wields as a tool of control and terror. When Stefan finally decides enough is enough, a battle royale begins. That's all we'll give away.

Four stars, and here's what they mean. This is filmmaking at the top of its craft. Ashcroft handles genuine horrors with discretion — much of the violence is implied, cut away, or left to your imagination rather than splashed across the screen — yet the dread never lets up. He builds momentum from the very first scene to a highly dramatic finish.

The film's greatest asset is its two leads. Rush and Lithgow deliver an acting tour-de-force as adversaries, and Ashcroft frames them in montages that are, in his hands, both remarkable and deeply sad. The result is sometimes difficult to watch, but it is riveting from start to end — a psychological horror movie that comes about as close to flawless as the genre gets.

Beneath the terror, this is a moral, redemptive story. A proud, stroke-afflicted man who at first treats others with disdain eventually risks his own life to save himself and the helpless around him from a cruel bully. That arc — from self-regard toward self-sacrifice — carries a light Christian moral weight, and the film clearly sides with courage against cruelty.

But it doesn't offer easy comfort. Because the struggle comes down to life or death, the ending lands with a note of despair, and the movie is sad throughout. Evil here is stopped only by being killed, and the picture of the nursing home is bleak enough to make you pray your own family is never left in one. It names the horror of neglect and helplessness without pretending to a clean resolution.

Still, the story's deepest instinct — that the strong should defend the weak, that the vulnerable are worth protecting — echoes something Scripture commands plainly: "Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked" (Psalm 82:4). Stefan cannot save everyone, but his willingness to lay down his life for others points beyond the darkness of this particular house.

This is a masterfully made, brilliantly acted horror-thriller with a genuinely moral heart — and it is also relentlessly disturbing, with cruelty, sexual menace, and dread that will haunt sensitive viewers. So here's our answer, the same one we opened with: worth the trip — adults only. Planning family movie night instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.