I must admit that I had initially expected the 2020 movie "Penance Lane" to be something quite different than what it turned out to be. I was expecting this to be more of a traditional horror movie, but instead I ended up watching something that felt like a mutated hybrid that proved to be rather mundane and bland.
The storyline told in "Penance Lane" just failed to properly entertain me. Sure, I managed to sit through the entire movie, but I can't claim to have been overly impressed or entertained by what I saw from writers Renae Geerlings, Matt Granger, Mikey Granger and Munier Sharrieff. And in fact, I must admit that it sort of astounds me that four writers can collectively manage to write something this trivial and generic.
While the storyline was bland, mediocre and predictable, the characters in the movie were just downright pointless. There was no attempts even made to flesh out the characters and give them any kind of personalities, traits, quirks or distinctive features. Every character could essentially easily have been replaced by the character before it, and it wouldn't have made a difference.
And the acting in the movie was as rigid and wooden as the storyline. So don't expect to be blown away by stellar performances that will rack up one award after another.
Director Péter Engert just failed to deliver a wholesome movie with this 2020 horror movie titled "Penance Lane". And I must admit that the movie's cover, title and synopsis severely oversold the movie, because it was made up to be something more than it was.
If you enjoy proper horror movies, you might as well skip out on "Penance Lane", as it just falls short of delivering anything worthwhile watching.
My rating of this 2020 horror movie settles on a three out of ten stars.
