Penny Lane is Dead
The summer of 1986 and Penny and her friends have graduated high school, she preparing to leave for the city where she will start her law degree but in the meantime having one last night without adult supervision at the beach house of her grandparents along with her besties, out and proud Toni and her polar opposite, Amy, shy and quiet but warm and kind.
Amy on the spectrum but sharp enough to know the other girls are hiding something, it is a good secret, that despite having no academic achievement Penny has asked Toni to go with her to the city, their hopes of a night of celebration derailed when resentful cousin Kat shows up with a malicious parting gift, a misanthrope who is only happy when others are suffering.
A disturbing watch but one which commands attention written and directed by Mia’kate Russell, Penny Lane is Dead stars Bailey Spalding, Tahlee Fereday and Alexandra Jensen as Penny, Toni and Amy, perhaps not as pure as their families might believe and bending the rules as soon as they are alone but certainly saints next to Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn as the unstable Kat.
Opening with surfing and beach babes and the golden-haired bronzed dudes of the local convenience store where the girls stock up on booze, the nightmare arrives when Kat is predictably asked to leave when she makes it clear she is only there to cause trouble, tearfully calling her “older boyfriend” for a lift, ex-con Angus (Ben O’Toole) who shows up expecting to party with Rodowsky (Fletcher Humphrys).
Weary of his duty and just wanting the job done, handler Merrick (Steve Le Marquand) is charged with keeping them out of trouble and drawing the attention of the police but allows them considerable latitude in their actions, what follows violent, bloody and distressing, Kat feeling slighted and out for revenge without considering consequence, allowing her friends to be drugged and assaulted so long as it secures her position within the pack.
Kat a monster with blood red lips but devoid of any sense of remorse, always needing to be the centre of attention and incapable of empathy, goading, provoking and taunting, when the balance finally shifts in favour of the avenging angel she deserves as little sympathy as the men whose comeuppance is gloriously cathartic, Penny Lane is Dead a difficult film to digest but one which is righteous in its justified rage.
Penny Lane is Dead will be streaming on Shudder from Friday 28th August
