Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Mia Kate Russell.
So? Is Penny Lane really dead? Like dead-dead? Kind of dead? Was it gruesome? Extra bloody? Well, stick around and you’ll find out, but we’re not telling.
Penny Lane is Dead is one of the newer offerings from Shudder that doesn’t fit neatly into the horror category, and if we’re being honest, is probably more of a thriller. Alas, it’s a revenge-based thriller, so we’re claiming it in the name of all things HORROR.
Revenge is a pretty awful dish. Whether it’s served as the over-the-top revenge great They Call Her One Eye, or 2025’s hyper-violent Can Evrenol flick, Sayara, revenge is not to be trifled with. As we recently learned in Episode 210 of the Scariest Things Podcast, revenge is rather fundamental to the horror genre. It looks good at the start, but by the end, you’ll understand that there are no winners.
In Penny Lane is Dead, director Mia Kate Russell opts to use this rather bitter device. Following in the well-worn footsteps of Ozsploitation greats like Wolf Creek, Wake in Fright, and Road Games, Penny Lane is Dead chooses a remote cabin that leans into the desolate nature of much of the continent.
The film follows a group of young women who retreat to the family cabin for a weekend of drinking and cavorting. Each of the women bring a broad character type the film, including:
- Penny Lane (Bailey Spalding) as the outgoing object of both men and women’s affection
- Amy (Alexandra Jensen) as the bookworm with a penchant for stuffed animals
- Toni (Tahlee Fereday) as Penny’s sullen love interest
- Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn) as Penny’s cousin who brings every possible type of crazy to the party
Unfortunately, it’s crazy Kat, who specifically was not invited to the party, that instantly garners the ire of the entire group. She shows up anyway and proceeds to disclose every trauma, gripe, and indignity that her far more beautiful cousin, Penny Lane, has brought to her. As Kat refuses to drop her grievances, the palpable tension among the girls curdles into hostility.
But the problem isn’t Kat. It’s her degenerate boyfriend and his gaggle of reprobates that show up for a night of booze, speed, and some other extra-curricular activities. Kat’s boyfriend Angus (Ben O’Toole) works to summon a cross between Frank Gorshen’s Riddler and Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth. Disturbing, condescending, and maniacal. One of the more evil cocktails in recent history.
Kat, Angus, and the aforementioned gaggle of reprobates get right to a night of lurid partying, but it’s clear that there is a rift among the crew. One is focused on a job that they’re supposed to complete and the other is too dumb to know that they have a job to complete.
The speed-fueled crew begins their somewhat by-the-numbers assault on the girls and Kat quickly goes from slightly crazy to full on bananas. At one point Angus tells Kat that there are five kinds of crazy women and she’s all five. Things do go of the rails for Kat and Angus, but not before some well timed and grizzly revenge is laid bare to the entire cast.
Should you see Penny Lane is Dead?
For a well shot and exceptionally well acted film, it’s a pretty mundane affair that doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the revenge table. Sure there’s revenge, but we guarantee you’ve seen all the twists, turns, and kills in prior horror films.
More frustrating is the fact that the film is inexplicably set in the 1980s. The film shows a handful of analog phones, some older Australian cars, some keys that go in the cars, and some vaguely 1980s apparel, but there’s no real connection to the time period. The film could have been just as easily set in 1996 or 2016, but the director chooses a time period that doesn’t provide an interesting supplement or any value-added content to the film.
You do eventually find out whether Penny Lane is dead, but by the time the surprise is divulged, the punch is taken out of this otherwise perfectly commonplace revenge outing. The real question becomes does it even matter that Penny Lane is dead…or alive?
Penny Lane is Rated TV-MA and currently streaming on Shudder.