Penance (I) (2009) User Reviews

Torture Porn, and Not Even Good Torture Porn

[TheExpatriate700 · 2/10 · 18 January 2010]

Penance is an example of this decade's "torture porn" craze at its worst. Cheaply made, with largely unknown actors, the film lacks the creativity of films such as Saw, substituting shock tactics for originality.

The story is nothing new. An innocent young woman is forced to become a stripper because of financial trouble, and ends up falling into the hands of a depraved religious fanatic. (I'm a humanist, and even I think this movie gives religion a bad name.) What follows is an hour long wallow in torture and extremely graphic sequences of genital mutilation, both male and female.

What makes the movie particularly disgusting is its implicit acceptance of the moral logic of the villain. The protagonist is a victim of circumstance, not a "bad" stripper like the others, who are depicted in the most stereotypical, degrading way possible. At times, this approach pushes the film into outright misogyny.

Furthermore, Penance relies on a video taping framing device ripped off from better films like REC. The result is a cheap looking digital feature that adds nothing to the overall story.

The only good points of the film are the scenes with Michael Rooker, which unfortunately comprise only ten minutes or so. One wishes the film had been focused on his character instead.

Movie Review: Penance (2009)

[LegendsofHorror · 4/10 · 15 April 2015]

This film is loosely inspired by the notorious Graeme Stephen Reeves also known as "The Butcher of Bega". He is a former gynecologist and obstetrician charged in relation to alleged sexual and indecent assaults and genital mutilation of all of his female patients.

The film stars Marieh Delfino (from Jeepers Creepers 2) as Amelia. Amelia is a single mother who is trying her best to care for her sick child by taking on a few side jobs of being a exotic dancer. Thanks to her friend Eve played by Alice Amter (Big Bang Theory's Mrs. Koothrappali) she learns the ins and outs of being a stripper and reluctantly follows in her friend's footsteps.

Up until this point of the film, there is LOTS of nudity and lots of shaky cam footage & dialogue.

That being said, we continue following our lead actress as she falls into a dancing gig. This gig leads her and us into a debauched and visceral hellhole, into the arms of a deranged madman played effortlessly by Graham McTavish (from The Hobbit trilogy & RAMBO). Graham brings Graeme Reeves to life in a most disturbing way.

Most of the scenes in the film take place in a what is believed to be a asylum hospital of sorts. This is where the film gets to the meat of it. The claustrophobia that is created alongside the brutality & gritty realism that is seen in the Hospital scenes are ones to make any man or woman cringe. Marieh Delfino does an AMAZING job at making the viewer feel she truly is in danger of her life & fighting to survive. It's quite unsettling in some places to watch.

If you watch the film, you'll know what I am talking about. If you can make it past the 30 minute mark, then you are in for a ride of disturbing proportions.

I'd also like to mention that two cameos of Horror's favorite bad guys are thrown into the mix. Tony Todd and Michael Rooker are placed in the film as Henchmen of the deranged Dr. Reeves.

That being said, this film is combination of both torture porn and found footage horror. The film in itself is really hard to watch in some instances, mainly due to the prolonged build up of the characters and the obvious torture & brutality of the women. It's a film that after watching it you definitely wanna see something else. It's a film that makes the audience feel uncomfortable and dirty. If you enjoy the grittiness of torture inspired HOSTEL-like films then check this out.

I guess some things I will never understand.

[Arisenandawakened · 2/10 · 23 March 2010]

This movie strikes me on so many levels as absolute trash. I wish the lead actress was at least attractive. Although, she did have nice breasts... which was the only redeeming quality of this flick, gratuitous nudity. Especially in the case of one Eve Mauro. That girl is absolutely gorgeous. Smokin' hot! I think I would probably watch anything with her in it, at least once. But alas, I digress from my original reason for writing this.

"Candyman", "Dead Man on Campus", "Warlock" and Brandi Svennings dad all in one movie? They obviously did not invest wisely of their spoils from their actual roles in real movies... That, or the director/writer/producer caught and filmed them all in some suck-off man orgy together and blackmailed them into making this horrible movie.

Actually a documentary on fecal matter would probably be more entertaining than this movie is...

If you're a guy and thinking about watching this movie, punch yourself in the balls... really hard. That pain is as enjoyable as this movie is going to be for you. If you're a girl, rinse your eyes with vodka. Same goes...

I will never understand how something as bad as this gets made. Along the line, people kept giving this the green light. HOW? The actors and actresses agreed to be in it. WHY? Distributors agreed to release it. Again I ask, in F's-name WHY? The economy is steadily slipping, but it seems the movie industry will throw copious amounts of cash to whatever idiot comes along. (I bet the screenplay was written in crayon.) I think "Clerks" cost a little over fifty grand to make. No actors, no sets and lastly, no color. Taking all of that into account, this movie at the very least, probably cost a cool quarter mil. WTF?!?! Are you serious?!?! In this day and age, Jake Whatever-his-name-is should be lynched for wasting that much money. Like rappers and athletes buying gold and platinum jewelry/teeth/wheels... but that's a whole other rant...

I give it two stars. One for each of Eve Mauro's wonderful breasts. Nothing else.

May have been okay with more convincing acting

[Midnight_Mass · 11 August 2010]

I'm not one to slate low-budget films- in fact, a lot of the time, they can seem much more realistic and worth-while. This, however, is an embarrassing display of poor acting with another Brit cast as the psychopath targeting some defenceless Americans. First of all, that stereotype is getting old- we're not all like that. Secondly, any credibility that this film claims to have with its "true characters" is lost with the ridiculous idea of each party deciding to film their absurd actions from both sides. It's just not plausible and way too co-incidental.

Decent if you want to see some genital mutilation (although nothing graphic), otherwise it's pretty dire...

Graphic, Decent Film

[dwayne-miller · 5/10 · 15 June 2010]

This film lures its viewers down into an graphic and disgusting abyss around the role of being a stripper, and attempts to terrify strippers and pre-strippers away from the lifestyle. Shot in documentary style, we are taken into a dark world that crosses between stripper life, trickery, and dark religion.

A redeeming quality of the movie is how it gave the impression that certain risks aren't worth the reward and that desperation can bring us to threatful situations. Certainly not an original plot, but the movie was decent enough for viewership. The acting was alright by a mostly anonymous cast.

Michael Rooker's character should have been predominantly featured as the character hadn't been seen in most of the film. He played his role well of a psycologically disturbed man who twists morality, righteousness, and penance to teach a lesson to the women that chose to sell their body. This movie is also not for the weak at heart and gets very graphic.

All in all, I'll write it off as nothing special. You can give it a look though, but if you have a better film to watch, you should slip that in instead.

On made it halfway and quit

[Musicianmagic · 1/10 · 22 September 2017]

They don't get much worse than this. Plot makes no sense. Characters wouldn't all be that stupid. This is a "found video footage" type movie and you are supposed to believe there are many cameras and everyone's first priority, even at their own peril is to videotape things. Your life is in immediate danger, you need to stop and videotape. Please.... If you came for the nudity, it's not worth it. If you came for the violence it's uninspiring. And there really is not much nudity or violence anyway. 1 star but deserves less.

Downright abysmal...

[paul_haakonsen · 1/10 · 15 June 2023]

When I stumbled upon the 2009 thriller "Penance" from writer and director Jake Kennedy, I opted to sit down to watch it because it was a movie that I hadn't already seen nor heard about, plus there were some interesting names on the cast list.

However, the reality of the thing that was "Penance" was far from entertaining. The storyline and script was a scambled and incohesive dumpsterfire, and with each passing minute it got more and more difficult to suffer through the ordeal. And I ended up giving up on "Penance" 55 minutes into the torment. At that point it was just clear that the movie's script and storyline wasn't going to improve. So I tossed the towel into the ring and gave up out of sheer and utter boredom and disinterest in the movie.

So writer and director Jake Kennedy most certainly failed to entertain me with this 2009 thriller. And I use the word 'thriller' here very loosely, because the movie wasn't much of anything, aside from a cluttered mess.

I am especially dumbfounded that with names such as Jason Connery, Michael Rooker, Graham McTavish, Lochlyn Munro, Tony Todd and James Duval on the cast list that "Penance" didn't amount to anything at all. Well, I suppose even actors and actresses fire blanks once in a while.

If you enjoy thrillers, then do yourself a favor and don't waste 85 minutes on the ordeal that is "Penance". Some of us suffered through this in lesser or greater length so you don't have to.

And believe you me when I say that I am never returning to watch the remaining 30 minutes of the movie. I just don't simply care about the characters of the mockery that was supposed to resemble a storyline.

My rating of "Penance" lands on a one out of ten stars.

Great cast, horrid movie

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 24 February 2016]

What a shame that a wonderful cast full of decent character actors and genre stalwarts is wasted in a nasty little 'torture porn' style movie. The tale of a couple of strippers who are abducted by some crazy characters who plan to punish and perform cruel surgery on them is an awful one, let down by overwrought acting, dodgy execution, and unpleasant gore effects.

The only reason I watched this was for all the familiar faces. Genre mainstays like Lochlyn Munro, James Duval, and Jason Connery all have minor parts. The main villain is played by Graham McTavish, a personal favourite of mine purely because of his wonderful character in RAMBO, and he's good here too, although he has little to work with. We also get a brief Tony Todd cameo, and a nicely sleazy turn for Michael Rooker. It's just a pity with all the talent involved that they couldn't come up with something better than this 'torture porn' dreck.

if your into torture porn this is a must-see but otherwise not a movie to go out of your way to watch, and definitely not for the squeamish.

[lukekellyforever · 2/10 · 29 June 2013]

The movie is off to a bad start with the new wave horror cliché of being shot on hand-held camera, this is by no means a bad thing if it is done correctly such as the infamous "Blair witch project" and "Cloverfield", however in the case of penance it feels like this was done to save money and not add atmosphere or a sense of realism to the movie (if it did it was lost on me). But the cliché doesn't stop there, everything in the movie seems to have some overused explanation or have a means of tribute to other horror movies; This begins with the main character (Marieh Delfino) taking up stripping as for providing for her young child (as seen in striptease and a subplot in independence day), this tries crudely to justify the need to show her topless from the first five minutes of the movie (the justification for why some guy has to film her on his camera has an even worse explanation), quite honestly the sex appeal was pretty much the reason for me continuing to watch this movie. Secondly comes the cameos of both Tony Todd and Michael Rooker, Todd established himself as a respectable horror movie actor with his performance in the cult (if you like) classic "Candyman" and making further cameos in other horror movies such as in final destination 1&2, Michael Rooker who appears as semi-main characters or occasional villains had an unnecessary and wasted role as a character who does nothing but shoot prostitutes. Finally comes Graham McTavish who if the hobbit boosts his carer he will no doubt regret doing this movie and possibly the most disturbing scene in any movie ever where the word castration falls only too short. Next is the justification Graham McTavish's character has for kidnapping, holding and torturing prostitutes, the ever famous and over used justification of being in some extreme Christian cult (seen in devil rides out, blood on Satan's claw and witch finder general, not bad movies) of which his means is redemption, the justification of his three helpers are never fully explained and are seemingly just along for the ride, the torture methods used include; whipping (topless of course), beatings, verbal abuse and genital mutilation, admittedly McTavish plays a sinister religious zealot and is the sole reason for the movie not being a complete failure. Another feature which could be pointed out to give the movie some credibility is that you get what you see "torture porn" and doesn't seem like the kind of movie which takes itself seriously. Finally in the cliché agenda is the typical sub-tag-line of "based on true events", whether this case was (if it was I assume it was over- exaggerated, at least I hope so) or wasn't it just seemed like a good way to get a horror movie with a LOT of sex appeal and justify lack of story with this sub-tag-line, it is also suggested that Graham McTavish's character was based on a real person who performed many female genital mutilations (I'm unclear to whether this is true or who it is. Either way the whole movie seems too far-fetched to be based on true events especially the religious undertone. The conclusion of this movie is that it seems like a chance to explore excessive amounts of nudity and torture, what saves this movie from being among the worst is that the acting is mediocre and not horrible, the scripting is nothing special but there is far worse, finally there is no one in this movie who could be classed as a "bad actor or actress" and to be fair you lose concentration on such matters with such high sex appeal of which previously stated is the only thing which keeps interest there is not much else that can be said for this movie if your into torture porn this is a must-see but otherwise not a movie to go out of your way to watch, and definitely not for the squeamish.

Pointless and terrible genre cross-over effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 4/10 · 24 September 2012]

Filling in for a friend on a stripping job, a young woman finds she's captured by a deranged madman intended to purify similar women for their sins and is tortured to achieve those results.

Yet another utterly retarded Torture Film here, only this one made all the more infuriated with the inclusion of the "Found Footage" moniker, so it's pretty much what would happen if "Paranormal Activity" did the "Saw" series, and that only spells disaster for all involved due to the inability to see anything going on because the camera's shaking too much. The tactic makes the usual point of such films, watching the torture methods and the abundant nudity nearly impossible to determine because of the inane manner of narrating over everything, twisting it to odd angles or positions in order to avoid being caught in such a precarious moment, which only highlights the film's biggest blunder of all in the fact that no one in their right mind would be filming during such activities and their decided inability to remove it from them to begin with and you have a pretty egregious set of flaws just from the set-up. Plus, this is yet another effort that must be downgraded for the inclusion of twisted religious reasoning since this makes no sense why the tactics must be undertaken and you have absolutely no interest beyond the nudity to watch this, which isn't that great since none of the ones who should are the ones that do. Granted, some of the torture methods are quite gruesome and bloody, overall this is a pure waste of time.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and Graphic Language.

Truth is the first step

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 3 September 2017]

Amelia (Marieh Delfino) reluctantly becomes a stripper when her daughter Asher gets a disease. She is in defiance of numerous laws by not having insurance and doesn't even apply for CHIP...okay it's fictional. She is not comfortable as a stripper and subs for Sassy/Suzie (Eve Mauro) for big money. IT'S A TRAP!!!! The place is run by a guy crazy about purity. He reminded me of an evil General Jack. D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden Dr. Strangelove) who denied women his "essence." They worked really hard trying to figure out out to get strippers into a found footage film. Thanks for the boobies, but overall the film wasn't that entertaining. The torture scenes were either off camera or blocked. Girls dancing without music doesn't make it. And what was with the Nazi Nurse Ratchet? F-word and nudity ( Marieh Delfino, Eve Mauro, Morann Peri, Katherine Randolph, Sita Young )

Great horror with ideas

[TdSmth5 · 8/10 · 17 February 2016]

We are told that what we are about to see are tapes found at a hospital for the criminally insane. Uh huh, that's not good.

Next we meet a girl named Amelia, talking to the camera. She's actually applying for an extreme life makeover show. She's a got a kid with some disease that eventually will end up costing tons of money to treat, she's in debt already, and her job, to report abuses at a woman's shelter, doesn't pay much. She gets a friend of hers to "film everything." Another friend, Suzie, offers to help her gain some confidence in herself. But Suzie is a stripper so her little course involves... stripping among other things so she even convinces Amelia to give stripping a try for some fast easy cash. At first it works out alright for Amelia. One day Suzie calls her over, she's been beat up. Amelia is outraged and wants to document it to report it but Suzie doesn't want to. Instead she suggests Amelia take her place in a stripping job that pays $3000. Amelia reluctantly accepts.

She's picked up in a limo, driven to a secret location where she meets two other girls. They do a strip audition in front of an unknown and unseen guy. Next they are offered champagne and faint. They wake up in locked cells. There are lots of other girls locked up in rooms as well. A foreign woman attends to them and zaps them with a taser whenever they misbehave. Finally, the obligatory Brit in formal military clothes (?) interrogates Amelia. He wants to know if she's a stripper, which she denies claiming it's all a misunderstanding. She's beaten until she admits it.

In the meantime, we learn that the Brit is on a mission to purify the girls, to rid them of sin. They have to pass 3 tests if they want to make it out alive, that's aside from the punishments they have to endure. In the process he will take out their "fun parts." And in all this, he too, is purifying himself so he thinks, and he even walks the walk by removing his own fun parts. At last Amelia decides to take charge of the situation and will attempt to make it out alive after enduring a lot of suffering.

I despise lost footage movies; the characters are always stupid and insufferable, the story cheap and basic, the dialogue moronic, the shaky cam is obnoxious and to top it off you always get lousy green nightvision. But Penance is different. The POV format doesn't distract and the video quality is good, that is until the setting changes to the hospital. Then suddenly audio becomes useless. Apparently they recorded audio live and it led to a lot of echo and very little clarity. On top of that, the character of the foreign woman speaks with such a heavy accent I couldn't make out anything she said. Video suffers also in this setting, it get's darker, grainier, colors get greener. But aside from that the story is excellent, apparently based on reality. The villain's justification goes even deeper than what I described and I enjoyed the rich story which is unusual for horror movies that don't bother to justify the villain's actions or why on earth someone is filming everything, but here it all has a good explanation.

Very enjoyable is also the cast, all the girls are gorgeous and there's plenty of nudity. Usually movies that deal with torture try to clean things up by avoiding nudity, but fortunately not Penance. But it's the lovely Marieh Delfino who steals the show, a natural beauty with a natural body who is also an outstanding actress. Makes no sense that this girl hasn't gotten more work. Eve Mauro also does a great and hot job as always.

I wasn't expecting much from Penance, but it's a very strong horror movie.

Video, torture and tits... oh my!

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 9 October 2011]

I'm as sick and tired of predictable torture flicks and found footage films as the next horror fan, and so Penance—which 'cleverly' combines these two tired sub-genres to create the 'found torture footage' sub-sub-genre—hardly sounded like it was going to deliver much of interest to this particular jaded viewer.

Indeed, after just a few minutes of wobbly Blair Witch-style nonsense, during which attractive young mother Amelia Wallis (Marieh Delfino) prattles in front of a video camera about her love of Topanga Canyon, her job at a centre for battered women, and her daughter, I was itching to switch off. But what I had forgotten about was the power of a fit bird in the raw to make almost anything worthwhile...

As part of her audition tape for a TV game-show, the usually reserved Amelia agrees to help her stripper pal Suzie (Eve Mauro) entertain a group of stags at a party; let's just say that this girl was built to strip! From that moment on, Penance becomes pure trash entertainment: after Suzie is given a black eye by a customer, Amelia reluctantly stands in for her friend on a highly paid job for a special client, a decision that results in the poor girl's incarceration at a disused asylum where she is subjected to torture by Geeves, a religious zealot who has dedicated his life to purifying the souls of strippers. Cue lots of gratuitous nudity, pointless cameos from horror icons, dumb plot development, vaginal mutilation, self-castration, and more nudity.

Penance's use of the found footage gimmick is totally implausible, the story painfully dumb, the supposedly tense action absolutely laughable, and the violence disappointing (although nasty in concept, the gore is not that graphic), but Marieh Delfino kept me entertained throughout, albeit on the most basic of levels. In fact, it makes me wonder if I would have enjoyed The Blair Witch Project more if Heather Donahue had only thrown caution to the wind and flipped out her norks....

Wasn't series worth

[newmantanya-45336 · 4/10 · 9 October 2023]

Started off pretty good I was getting into but last episode was really disappointing I was excited to Watch and continue it but when I realised it all ended I didn't see the point of it being a series Should been a movie .

Not only that the ending was so bad acting I was so disappointed just felt like the bloke didn't really have to died at the end that could have been prevented it didn't feel moving or nothing But other than the whole ending was pretty good just I feel like everything happened to fast him falling in love with the women and his change of behaviour I feel like could played out little longer.

But I definitely would say not the worst I have seen.

Say WHAT??????

[BigGiantEyeball · 1/10 · 20 March 2013]

I haven't watched all of this mess. Besides, it's screening on Chiller right now, which means I would only see an extremely censored version anyway. This is the kind of movie that makes me wonder what has happened the the American horror film industry. At one time this might have fit into the old misogynistic grind-house genre. But instead of being a Something Weird Video study in cinematographic personal weirdness, what we have here more closely resembles a badly written bit of internet degradation erotica. The very idea that this could get financed without a house being mortgaged astounds me. The idea of a group of people assembling to work on it without the hiring of friends, drug addicts, prostitutes, and/or low level porn vets says something wretched about America today. Somewhere along the line, cheap horror has lost it's charm. Where once we had a fairly consistent flow of wacky attempts to astound, we now are asked to watch some writer and director indulge in their crude, ugly, masturbatory, fantasies. This is not only true of the discount direct-to-DVD market, but of the well financed Hollywood horror flick of the day. The depths that the director's imagination is willing to plummet is the star of the film. It's as though we are reviewing the portfolios of potential serial killers and sexual sadists. So, if I haven't sat through the whole thing, and I dismiss the current trends in horror cinema, why am I even bothering to comment on something I obviously think is beyond is beyond contempt? Simple. As I said, it's screening on Chiller. For this oozing scab to appear on a basic cable channel in mid afternoon, speaks loudly of how far we have fallen. Chiller and the SyFy network were two channels I hoped to be places where I could indulge my lifelong fandom of fantasy cinema. I'm certainly no elitist. I can speak for hours about the oddball and perverse cheap thrills I've had romping through the twisted subconscious of our less fortunate film makers. But now after more than 50 years of fun, I find myself wondering what the Hell happened. Are the media financiers so cynical and disrespecting of their audience that they can ladle this mung on the publics head without a speck of regret? Like I said, I'm no naive child losing my innocence. I'm a lifelong fan of the good, the bad, and the gloriously loopy in the fantasy realm. I've rationalized this by believing that vigorous fantasy is always a revealing social self portrait, thus worthy of serious attention. I still believe that is true, but the portrait I see is of a grimy, bleak, sadistic, mediocre, artless, landscape that can't even bother to create and present something that approaches competency. The fantasy genre now resembles the cafeteria at the end of Orwell's 1984. A gray place serving inedible food to degraded lost souls who realize that all their dreams were just delusions, and reality is just something so pitiful that suicide isn't worth the trouble. How sad....

Horror with Story Depth

[in1984 · 7/10 · 23 March 2010]

Probably best compared to a combination of Saw and the Killing Room. Only simpletons with an attention span disability will call this torture porn. I'm starting to wonder if there's a group of people out there who simply go around labeling stuff torture porn to turn people off from otherwise great films (such as Martyrs).

It does have some nasty scenes, but more is left to the imagination than is shown, so that kills the porn element. There is torture, and largely the film involves a very psychologically disturbed person seeking revenge through torture.

So, psychological torture horror with some gore, yes. A Saw copycat, yes, in some ways. But that's far too simple to capture what's going on here. A very well thought out story.