Penny Dreadful (After Dark Horrorfest 2006 Review)

Plot
Penny Deerborn goes on a retreat with her psychologist, Orianna Volkes, to help Penny overcome her intense phobia of cars. On the way to the retreat the literally run into a hitchhiker and Penny finds herself in a situation where her worst fears become reality.

Jason’s Thoughts
Penny Dreadful started off on the right foot and was able to capture my attention, but it took a sharp turn for the worse about halfway through the film.  Penny, along with her psychologist, head out to a retreat to help her get over her fear of automobiles, which has been a phobia of hers since she lost her parents in a car accident.  Along the way they hit a hitchhiker on the side of the road and decide to give him a hand by taking him to an out of the way location.  

It was at that moment where this movie started going downhill.  As you could guess, the hitchhiker is a murderous maniac and new characters are introduced for the sole purpose of being victims of his attacks.  Not only that, but Penny finds herself in a predicament where her car is stuck between two huge redwood trees and there is no way out, thus having to live inside her one true fear.  Of course, the hitchhiker keeps his tabs on her and tries his best to scare her out of her wits in between killing the rest of the characters in the movie.

Penny Dreadful may have fared better if it was a short film.  It is a good concept but the story itself was too thin to be a full blown horror movie, so it seemed that there were a lot of repetitive scenes in the film and a lot of filler (i.e. the rest of the cast).  Another huge letdown was when it was finally revealed as to who the hitchhiker was.  Was he the creepy gas station attendant?  Or could it possibly be Penny’s boyfriend?  Nope, it was just your average escaped mental patient going on a murderous rampage for no reason.

Normally I would have given a movie like this a one-star rating, but I will give the makers of this movie some credit for the camera work and a few of the special effects.  Aside from that, this movie truly lives up to its name and is dreadful.

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