Movies
“Don’t Talk!” – Alamo Drafthouse PSA with ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ Stars John Lithgow & Geoffrey Rush
How often have you wanted to turn to a rude movie patron and yell “Will you shut the fuck up?”
John Lithgow does just that to his The Rule of Jenny Pen co-star Geoffrey Rush in a PSA for Alamo Drafthouse.
In the humorous clip below, Lithgow performs Shakespeare’s Richard II while Rush is a nuance to society who can’t stay off his phone in the theater.
Praised by Stephen King as “one of the best movies I’ve seen this year,” The Rule of Jenny Pen hits theaters this weekend from IFC Films.
A former judge (Rush), confined to a secluded rest home and trapped within his stroke-ridden body, must stop an elderly psychopath (Lithgow) who employs a child’s puppet to abuse the home’s residents with deadly consequences.
George Henare, Nathaniel Lees, Thomas Sainbury, and Ian Mune round out the cast.
The New Zealand production is directed by James Ashcroft from a script he co-wrote with Eli Kent, based on the short story of the same name by Owen Marshall. The three creatives previously collaborated on Coming Home in the Dark.
Matt Donato wrote in his review, “The Rule of Jenny Pen showcases behind-the-camera command, excellent performances, and that horror has no age limit. Geoffrey Rush plays wounded and stubborn, while John Lithgow gives himself to the mocking malevolence of a nasty hand puppet. It’s a methodical brand of fearfulness that isn’t about jump scares or unnatural forces, but that’s the point.”
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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