All through October, I’ll be posting reviews of the best of the best films in the horror genre released since October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025. As an added bonus, I’ll be adding a secondary review that may be somewhat related to the main review or slightly missed the countdown by inches. Follow along the countdown every day in October. Feel free to agree, disagree, or better yet, give me your own picks for your favorite horror movies of the year. Happy Halloween!

19. THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (2024)

Released on March 7, 2025, and streaming on Shudder from IFC Films!
Directed by James Ashcroft.
Written by James Ashcroft, Eli Kent, Owen Marshall.
Check out the trailer here!!

Geoffrey rush plays Stefan Mortensen, a judge who suffers a stroke and requires to be placed in a nursing home for recovery. There he meets Dave Crealy played by John Lithgow, who is the local bully, taking his wrath out against his feeble peers at the home. When Stefan refuses to acknowledge Crealy’s superiority at the home, a bitter feud begins.

THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is one dark tale and if there is any complaint I have at all it is that I didn’t get to spend more time watching these seasoned actors do what they do best. Rush is wonderful as a man who has loved a cold life as a judge and is now paying for it by being alone in this nursing home. He contests that he will soon be out of the home, so he doesn’t want to make friends or participate in the activities. While one would think that would make the character dislikable, the way the film intimately follows Stefan through his struggles, you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy. Rush is able to bring humanity to an utterly inhuman person by showing all of the gory details of how debilitating a stroke can be. Seeing rush play such a vulnerable role where he is in conflict with his own body is heartbreaking.

But you can’t help but root for him because John Lithgow gives such a diabolical performance as Crealy. But while Crealy does some truly despicable acts, Lithgow somehow makes you feel for him as well. Crealy is nuanced in his madness and those of you, like me, who thought the Batman movies missed out by not having him play the Ventriloquist, get a taste of the insanity here as his tendency to talk with his support puppet is terrifying. There is a scene in THE RULE OF JENNY PEN where the old folks are all dancing, and Lithgow goes out there and turns it into a mosh pit that is truly twisted. He is simply a force of nature here, decimating everyone in his path, but like most bullies, his insecurities are obvious.

I used to work in the therapy business, and early on, when he had a series of internships giving the students experience with different populations, I knew geriatric facilities just weren’t for me. It was because of my own fear of getting old and helpless. It was because the patients would often mistake me for their son or even late husband. I just knew I would never work in a place like that. This movie didn’t change my mind at all about that. Director James Ashcroft captures the day-to-day monotony and the underlying madness of working in a facility for the elderly to a tee. Working like an old folks home version of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is about one man fighting the system, its only that this system happens to be represented, not by a strict nurse, but by a horrible man wearing a puppet on his hand. Rush plays the will to fight that system, something that has been in place as long as most at the home can remember, and how that can be worn down over time. Seeing Rush go from hopeful to leave to inevitably accepting his fate is the stuff of nightmares for me. And as I am not getting any younger, this film hit me like a sledgehammer at times as despite how much Stefan tried to reason with the staff, his words are ignored, because in their eyes he is not relevant anymore. Just truly heart shattering.

But though the drama is amped to the max and much of the film is rooted in the real world, have no worries. There are lots of horrors to look ahead to in this one. Through terrifying hallucinations and dream sequences, the nightmare of Crealy and his puppet Jenny Pen are ever present and horrifying. Not only that, but the lengths Crealy goes to exert his authority over the rest of his peers is equally horrible, as Crealy knows how to cheat the system and does so with devilish glee and dire intent. He may not move fast, but Crealy’s wrath is terrible indeed.

If anything, THE RULE OF JENNY PEN should come with a warning that you’re going to be feeling depressed as all hell as you walk away from this one. It is an extremely sad watch. If you have an elderly parent or grandparent, this one is going to hit hard and will have you looking for any kind of alternative living situation than a home like the one depicted here. At the same time, THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is a celebration of two actors who don’t get top billing as often as they used to. The film allows them to show that they are still in top form.

My own prejudices against the elderly aside, THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is one hell of a powerful film. It isn’t bloody or filled with jump scares. But it does tap into that fear we all have of growing old, insignificant, and alone. That’s scarier than any serial killer or found footage I’ve ever seen because it’s real and we all should be long enough to experience that. But even that’s fucked up. You want to survive the horrors of life, and you do, then you end up not in command of your own body, your own senses, your own freedoms. It’s heavy scary stuff and THE RULE OF JENNY PEN is riddled with those real, inevitable, and terrifying scares. Are you ready to face those fears? How you answer will be whether you’re going to want to watch this movie.

Worth Noting: GRAFTED (2024)

Released on January 24, 2025, and streaming on Shudder!
Directed by Sasha Rainbow.
Written by Sasha Rainbow, Lee Murray, Mia Maramara, Hweiling Ow.
Check out the trailer here!!

A young, brilliant, and socially awkward exchange student named Wei (Joyena Sun) leaves her home in China to live with her Aunt Ling (Xiao Hu) and Cousin Angela (Jess Hong) in New Zealand. While her professor Paul (Jared Turner) is impressed with Wei’s scientific knowledge and agrees to take her as his assistant, Wei fails to fit in with Angela and her friends Eve (Eden Hart) and Jasmine (Sepi To’a). You see, Wei and her father were burned back in China, and her father was developing a skin graft technique to regrow damaged skin, but after her father’s experiment ended in his death, Wei sets out to perfect his theories. Taking notice of Wei’s talent in the lab, Paul, who is up for tenure and without ideas of his own, intends to steal Wei’s new skin graft formula and take credit for it himself. But Wei decides to use the formula on herself, resulting in a series of events that spell disaster for all involved.

GRAFTED strongly resembles last year’s amazing THE SUBSTANCE in many ways. While it is not as creative as that marvelous film, it does toy around with a lot of the same concepts including the obsession to look good in today’s society, the basic need to fit in and be relevant to others, and how messing with the natural order of things often comes back to haunt you big time. All of this occurs in GRAFTED as Wei tries her hardest to befriend her cousin’s clique. Mixing in elements of MEAN GIRLS and HEATHERS, Angela and her friends are not the friendliest, as Wei represents aspects of Angela’s culture that she doesn’t want to acknowledge. The bullying that goes on against Wei is going to pull on the heartstrings and it really succeeds in making one root for Wei to be better than trying to be like these mean girls. But if she did that, this wouldn’t be a horror movie, would it?

What transpires is a bit of body swapping as Wei’s new skin grafting technique turns out to be temporary and requires new skin to keep working, making Wei a sort of vampire of sorts, in need unfamiliar faces to help her heal her own. This leads to some very heinous body horror as skin is ripped off, scraped off, clawed off, and shaved off in all kinds of toe-curling ways. These scenes get up close and personal and will definitely be too much for the weak stomached. Still, the effects look good and practical, and much blood is spilled, so gorehounds will be appeased.

Logic gets tossed out the window by the third act as Wei begins impersonating the people who she kills. It’s quite a leap that people in the film are actually fooled by Wei simply wearing the faces of these other actors, mainly because they have completely different body types than the short statured Wei. I get it. We are supposed to suspend that kind of disbelief, but Wei gets into intimate situations with people who know the skin Wei is wearing and one has to believe the cast is dumb as a rock for not noticing something is off.

The cast is pretty solid all around. This is a film where not only do the actors have to play different characters, but they also have to play Wei wearing their skins. This is successful, though there was an opportunity missed to have some kind of physical quirks that could have been added to Wei’s performance and then reflected later when the other actors are playing Wei. Instead, we are to believe Wei is such a chameleon that she is able to imitate these other characters without others noticing and there really is nothing we know of Wei to indicate this. There is a scene where Wei attempts to mimic the way Angela and her friends are talking, but it is less than believable and only shows that she is no Rich Little, in terms of impersonation.

While again, it was remarkably similar to the end of THE SUBSTANCE, I liked the way GRAFTED wrapped up in a tragedy-heavy way. It is different enough from THE SUBSTANCE to not be a complete rip-off, these two films were in production at the same time, but still the dark and grotesque tone is terribly similar. GRAFTED has some very grody gore and sports some solid acting from its entire cast. There is a poeticism to the way this one plays out that I dug quite a bit. It is an inferior film when compared with all of the heavy thematics THE SUBSTANCE tackled, but the similarities guarantee it would make for a thrilling, albeit gross double feature. GRAFTED plays on a lower scale, mixing MEAN GIRLS with the goppiest of body horror. I definitely recommend this one, but only if you have a strong stomach.

The Best in Horror Countdown 2024-2025
#31 – GET AWAY (DARK MATCH)
#30 – PABRIK GULA (#MISSINGCOUPLE)
#29 – YULE LOG 2: BRANCHIN’ OUT (THE LAST VIDEO STORE)
#28 – FREWAKA (THE SURRENDER)
#27 – FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES (V/H/S/BEYOND)
#26 – ALMA AND THE WOLF (CUSTOM)
#25 – LOOKY-LOO (THE CREEP TAPES)
#24 – DANGEROUS ANIMALS (THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN)
#23 – THE MONKEY (THE DAMNED)
#22 – THE DEVIL AND THE DAYLONG BROTHERS (THE SEVERED SUN)
#21 – TERRIFIER 3 (CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD)
#20 – PRESENCE (HOUSE ON EDEN)
#19 – THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (GRAFTED)