Penny Lane is Dead, on Shudder

Sometimes students are popular because they are cool. As a corollary, sometimes unpopular kids are horrible people. Usually, horror movies assume the opposite, but not this one. Penny Lane is an example of the former and her creepy cousin Kat exemplifies the latter. Kat and her associates do some terrible things to Lane and her friends, as the title clearly implies, in Mia Kate Russell’s Penny Lane is Dead, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

It was supposed to be a final girls’ night for Lane and her two besties before they start at the universities that declined to admit Toni. At least she has the consolation of a promotion from Lane’s best friend to girlfriend, of which their third best bud, Amy, remains oblivious, due to her arrested emotional development. Much to everyone’s chagrin, Kat invites herself over too.

Kat still deeply resents Lane because of some unexplained “troubles” some years prior. Even though it was most likely all her fault, Kat still carries a grudge against her cousin, so she gives Lane a drug-laced cupcake. Then she invites over her dodgy new boyfriend Angus and his thuggish associates, Merrick and Rodowsky.

Frankly, grizzled old Merrick would like to serve as the voice of reason, but Angus constantly exercises his criminal privilege, as the son of a notorious gangster. They have an important underworld errand to run, but Angus insists on staying to torment and torture the girls, as Kat gleefully eggs him on. However, Toni is tougher than the intruders assume.

Perhaps because of licensing fees, the obvious Beatles song is never heard or referenced at any point in the film. Indeed, there is as much connection to Penny Lane the model or Penny Lane the documentary filmmaker as there is to the song or the Liverpool street. Instead, Russell’s heart is firmly planted in Australia, the birthplace of the Ozploitation films (such as Wolf Creek) that clearly inspired her latest film.

Consequently, viewers are in for a rough ride. Even by exploitation standards, Penny Lane is notably nasty and brutal. Russell tries to con the audience by grafting a veneer of gender politics onto the sadistic violence, but that is just cheap pandering to justify a barrage of cruelty, which is hard to watch.

That is a shame, because it wastes a fascinating performance from Steve le Marquand as Merrick, a serious man who knows better, but still cannot prevent the horrors that unfold. Conversely, Sophie Wright-Mendelsohn is impressively unhinged as Kat. Plus, Tahlee Fereday has credible fierceness as potential final girl, Toni.

Regardless, Russell’s film is a lot to endure. In fact, it is just too darned much to be any fun—so what’s the point? Ultimately, it is a victim of its own overkill. Not recommended for us mere mortals—and Ozploitation fanatics should consider themselves forewarned, Penny Lane is Dead starts streaming tomorrow (8/28) on Shudder.