davannacarter I was going to give a synopsis of the movie but I couldn't write one without giving away spoilers. So I gave up on that part. I'm just going to write the things I didn't like about this flick: 1. The chick who played Penny Dreadful was annoying beyond belief. Some people were saying she's gorgeous and a great actress. No, no, no, no, no. Don't believe that for a second. Great actress? Her whole job was to pretend to be super terrified throughout the entire movie. How hard is that? Gorgeous? She has a super huge head. Her head is waaaaaay too big for her body. She's like a freaking bobblehead doll.2. Mimi Rogers plays Penny's therapist. Mimi is taking Penny to this secluded place hours from civilization so Penny can get over her fear of cars. Why does it need to be out in the middle of nowhere? Why can't it be at some sort of psychological institute near people? 3. Along the way they hit this creepy hitchhiker and decide to give him a lift. Why? If I had hit the hitchhiker, I wouldn't even bother to get out of my car. I would roll down my window part of the way and ask, "Are you okay?" After the hitcher had said they were okay, I would hit the accelerator and speed off. I don't care if I get a ticket for hit and run, I am not picking up that creep.4. Penny is really aggravating. I was watching this on my laptop and I counted ten times when she annoyed me so much I wanted to throw my laptop out the window. Her therapist must be getting paid thousands of dollars to stay with her at some secluded place for days on end.5. As with most horror movies made within the last 20 years, there are random characters and subplots thrown in that don't enhance the main plot whatsoever. The only reason these characters are thrown in is to increase the body count. And because the director is unable to make an engrossing movie with suspense alone. So he has to resort to the amateurish tactic of increasing the body count in order to distract the audience.The only thing I liked about this movie was the cinematography. Two main things caused me to dislike the movie: Penny aggravated me to no end. And the unnecessary way the director put in extra characters to increase the body count.

Nitzan Havoc Penny Dreadful - another solid proof why you should never, ever ever trust IMDb's rating system. I still haven't figured out how it works, but if this film is rated 5.1 at the moment, then something is definitely messed up. I've barely stopped myself from rating it 10 just to do it justice on behalf of those who did it wrong.Much like the groundbreaking "Saw" and the thriller "Panic Room", Penny Dreadful saved a lot of budget by using an almost single location - and an instant one. In "Saw" it was a deserted public bathroom, and here - a stranded car. How did it work? Beautifully. Not for one second did I get the chance to stop and think "I wish there were some more shooting locations".Let's be fair: the plot is far from original, as we've seen too many films about creepy hitchhikers who turn out to be psycho killers. The ending is as anticlimactic, overused and worn down as they come. But other than that? This film has been spectacular. The exposition and build-up were very original (not a married couple on vacation, not teenagers going to a cabin, but a car-phobic orphan and her therapist!), the acting was profound, and the thrill and anxiety started around 5 minutes into the film and lasted till the final moment.One might think that an entire film portraying a girl locked in a car with a killer tormenting her from the outside would be lacking in content and boring. I might have thought the same before watching this film. Innovative, original and excellently done! Slightly more work on the screenplay could have made it a masterpiece.All in all? One of the best Horror films of 2006, if you haven't watched it yet - stop reading my babble and go watch it!

Red_Identity I was actually looking forward to this film... it has a very interesting premise that if done correctly can succeed. While the opening credits were rather good and captured a great mood, I cannot help but feel that this is the definition of a completely mediocre film. It had some interesting scenes and premise, but the execution mostly fails. It is very amateurishly-directed and acted. Rachel Miner wanted to do good, and at times she is, but she completely annoyed me. The beginning scenes with the hitchhiker are actually tense, but things fall apart pretty quickly. Sad, because the film at least has an established tone, but ultimately, I cannot say anything but skip it (despite some worthy scenes).

The_Void If you make a film with the word 'dreadful' in the title, and your film is dreadful, you've really got to expect that a lot of the reviews for the film will express that very adjective; and I really cant think of a better way to describe 'Penny Dreadful' than the second word of its title. I'm all for horror films that try to be original and don't follow an obvious and often done plot line. As a result, a film about someone with a phobia of cars actually sounded promising; but unfortunately the director has opted to pepper the film with clichés, which cancels out any originality. The plot focuses on two women travelling through America in a car. One of them is Penny Deerborn; a young girl who suffers from the fear or cars, and the other is Orianna Volkes - her psychologist. Rather than simply prescribe a bike, Orianna decides that the best medicine for someone who is afraid of cars is to travel many miles to the place where her mother died, in a car. Brilliant! Naturally this pea-brained scheme goes wrong, and young Penny ends up in a nightmarish situation.The majority of this film involves the young girl trapped inside the car. The idea of someone being trapped and intensely frightened could easily lead to a good horror movie; but here it just isn't interesting and the result of that is that we simply don't care about anything that is happening in the film. The script doesn't allow either of the central characters to be made interesting and when the bulk of the film relies on one of them in particular; that really is a large problem. Rachel Miner takes the lead role and actually doesn't do too badly with the material she's given, and starring opposite her is Mimi Rogers as the psychologist with the silly plan, who also does OK. The film doesn't have a lot of variety in terms of the locations used; most of it takes place inside a car anyway. The film really just drones on for most of the running time and it all boils down to a stupid ending. Overall, this is really just a missed opportunity as with better handling, Penny Dreadful could at least have been decent. Oh well...just add it to the long list of dull modern horror films instead.