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As I was walking to the premiere of Penny Lane is Dead at Fantasia International Film Festival last night, an attendee I had met earlier this week warned me I was in for a brutal watch. I tend to take these warnings with a grain of salt since I’ve been told of certain films are brutal before, only to be severely underwhelmed. Penny Lane is Dead, however, doesn’t disappoint.
The feature directorial and screenwriting debut of hair and makeup artist Mia’Kate Russell, Penny Lane is Dead is a gory, gnarly throwback to old-school Oz-ploitation horror. In the summer of 1986, high school friends Amy (Alexandra Jensen), Toni (Tahlee Fereday), and Penny Lane (Bailey Spalding) throw a graduation party at Penny’s family’s isolated beach house. The girls are surprised when Penny’s jealous cousin, Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, whose performance will remind you of a young Fairuza Balk) arrives with a Tupperware container of cupcakes, one of them laced with sleeping pills. Intent on destroying Penny’s life, Kat takes photos her passed out on the couch, but that’s not all she has planned for the night. She’s invited her much older boyfriend, Angus (Ben O’Toole), who has just been released from jail, and his equally menacing friends, and they’re not leaving until the girls are dead.
Somewhere around the vicious, bloody climax, there was a scene so intense that an audience member passed out not far from where I was sitting. Thankfully, they appeared to be okay, but it’s proof that Russell’s hotly anticipated debut is the real deal.
Think you can handle it? Then be sure to check out Penny Lane is Dead when it arrives on Shudder August 28.
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