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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Leslie Felperin

Penny Lane Is Dead review – Aussie slasher comedy zips from Neighbours to nasty

Two blood-splattered women ride a motorcycle on a tree-lined road
Deranged and oddly fetching … Tahlee Fereday and Bailey Spalding in Penny Lane is Dead. Photograph: Shudder

Here is a muddled if energetic effort from Australian writer-director Mia’Kate Russell. There’s a little too much blurriness around the edges, making relationships and motivations slightly opaque, while the last-minute entrances and exits are a bit on the haphazard side. But as a study of seething girl-on-girl anger that leads to ultraviolence, it’s a gas.

Set in Australia in 1986 (presumably because this means no mobile phones, and thus no calling for help), a trio of high-school besties prepares for a night of partying before the summer ends. Penny (Bailey Spalding) is planning to go to university to study law and asks her girlfriend Toni (Tahlee Fereday) to come with her. The two have only recently become lovers and they haven’t yet come out to their buddy Amy (Alexandra Jensen) – a sweet, childlike teen who still carries a stuffed tiger toy around for comfort.

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