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Actor Tom Troupe, known for his many roles on television and on the stage, has died. He was 97 years old.

Per CBS News, Troupe died on Sunday morning, though no other details were revealed about the circumstances. His passing was confirmed by his representative.

Troupe was born on July 15, 1928. Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, Troupe relocated to New York in 1948 with dreams of a career in show business. He took a break from his journey to serve in the Korean War, earning a bronze star, before returning to acting in New York. He'd make his Broadway debut in 1957 with a role in The Diary of Anne Frank. He'd later move to Los Angeles where he started picking up television roles, appearing in over 70 TV shows over the course of his career, most often for single-episode appearances.

One of Troupe's most well-known roles was in the original Star Trek series, playing Lt.

Stephen King knows a lot about horror. He’s written dozens of famous scary stories, and even though his attempt at directing a horror movie himself (the very bad Maximum Overdrive) didn’t work out, he’s still someone people trust when it comes to scary films. So when he says a movie is good, fans pay attention.

Recently, King talked about a movie called The Rule of Jenny Pen, a small horror film from New Zealand that hardly anyone saw when it first came out. He posted online after watching it and said, “I watched one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s called The Rule of Jenny Pen, and I urge you to watch it when it appears on Shudder.” That’s a pretty big statement from a guy who’s seen almost every horror movie out there.

I watched one of the best...

Stephen King, the famous author who knows more about horror than most people ever will, recommended a film that barely anyone has seen. Despite his own failed attempt at directing with the widely mocked Maximum Overdrive, King still knows exactly what makes a great horror story.

And when he speaks, horror fans tend to listen. Not long ago, he called The Rule of Jenny Pen “one of the best movies I’ve seen this year” and said, “I urge you to watch it when it appears on Shudder.”

I watched one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s called The Rule Of Jenny Pen, and I urge you to watch it when it appears on Shudder. Geoffrey Rush stars, with John Lithgow as a geriatric psychopath with an evil hand puppet.

Via X

Released in 2025, The Rule of Jenny Pen is a small psychological horror film from New Zealand.

Praised by Stephen King as “one of the best movies I’ve seen this year,” The Rule of Jenny Pen will be released on Blu-ray on July 8.

John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush star in the New Zealand psychological horror film, currently streaming on Shudder.

Special Features:

Behind the Scenes of The Rule of Jenny Pen

Arrogant Judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush) suffers a near-fatal stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a retirement home. Resistant to the staff and distant from his friendly roommate, Mortensen soon clashes with seemingly gentle resident Dave Crealy (Lithgow), who secretly terrorizes the home with a sadistic game called The Rule of Jenny Pen while wielding his dementia doll as an instrument of cruelty.

What begins as childish torment quickly escalates into far more sinister and disturbing incidents. When Mortensen’s pleas to the staff go unanswered, he takes it upon himself to put an...

Sian Barbara Allen, a onetime Universal contract player who appeared in the films You’ll Like My Mother and Billy Two Hats and played a love interest of Richard Thomas’ John-Boy on The Waltons, died Monday. She was 78.

Allen died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, after a battle with Alzheimer’s, her family announced. She often played characters with “great vulnerability and uncommon empathy,” they noted.

In telefilms, Allen starred with Bette Davis and Ted Bessell as the title character, a housekeeper in a mansion, in 1973’s Scream, Pretty Peggy at ABC; with Claude Akins, John Savage and Patricia Neal in the 1975 tearjerker Eric at NBC; and with Anthony Hopkins and Cliff DeYoung in 1976’s The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, also at NBC (she played the wife of the famed aviator).

Born on July 12, 1946, in Reading, Pennsylvania, Allen was raised by her mother, Ruth, and her grandmother, Etta.

After she graduated from Reading Senior High School,...

Based on Owen Marshall’s short story, “The Rule of Jenny Pen” (2025) blends the evocative drama of its setting, which is life at an elder-care home, with the standard horror thrills of a dangerous killer on the loose. James Ashcroft, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Eli Kent, explores the pangs of aging without compromising classic horror tropes. And when you have Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow magnificently raising hell, there is no option but to work wonderfully well as a film.

The Rule of Jenny Pen (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a formidably strict judge, does not mince words when delivering his judgment. The film starts with Stefan berating a mother who could not protect her daughter from being molested. To Stefan, not standing up is culpable. Things take a sharp turn for Stefan as he suffers a stroke, rendering him paralyzed. The state enrolls him...

Welcome to IndieWire After Dark, where we pick a new theme for our midnight movie programming every month!

Join us on Friday nights (and special occasions!) to explore some of the strangest fringe films available at any hour in the Streaming Age.

The scariest puppet this side of the “Saw” franchise, Jenny Pen is an early frontrunner in the race for 2025’s favorite new horror icon. She’s the reason for the season and the inspiration behind this month’s IndieWire After Dark lineup — Two Midnight Movies (and a Muppet!) That Influenced “The Rule of Jenny Pen.”

A labor of love from filmmaker James Ashcroft, puppeteer Paul Lewis, and star actor John Lithgow, the titular prop drew on a slew of sources. The movie is based on a story by Owen Marshall, which was optioned by Ashcroft and his co-writer Eli Kent more than a decade ago, and it’s...

Dig deeper into Jenny Pen’s heritage with IndieWire After Dark! In March 2025, our weekly midnight movie club is revisiting three of the fringe film influences that inspired “The Rule of Jenny Pen.”

Where do babies come from? Under “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” the answer isn’t as simple as having unprotected sex or getting a visit from the stork. No, the brainchild of director James Ashcroft and puppeteer Paul Lewis has an especially complicated birth story and answers to more artistic parents than most.

Part David Lynch, part Muppet, the titular Jenny Pen debuted in theaters on March 7. She’s a Pisces who is laying early claim to the title of 2025’s favorite new horror icon, thanks to the midwives over at IFC Films and Shudder. (“The Rule of Jenny Pen” will stream exclusively on the horror platform and AMC+ starting on March 28.)

The centerpiece to a toxic...

Stars: John Lithgow, Geoffrey Rush, George Henare | Written by James Ashcroft, Eli Kent | Directed by James Ashcroft

Directed by James Ashcroft, chilling care home horror The Rule of Jenny Pen is adapted from a story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall. Co-written by Ashcroft and Eli Kent, it’s a terrifying tale of bullying and elder abuse that’s all the more frightening for its plausibility.

Geoffrey Rush stars as Stefan Mortensen, an elderly, cantankerous judge who has a devastating stroke while passing a verdict and ends up half-paralysed and confined to a care home. Already infuriated by having to share a room with former rugby star Tony Garfield (George Henare), Stefan’s problems only get worse when they are both terrorised by long-term patient Dave Crealy (John Lithgow), who is never seen without a baby-faced, hollow-eyed therapy puppet on his hand, named Jenny Pen.

Unfortunately, no one in the...

Geoffrey Rush’s retired judge is terrorised by Lithgow’s therapy puppet-wielding fellow resident in this claustrophobic tale of elder-on-elder abuse

Film-maker James Ashcroft has created a scary and intimately upsetting psychological horror based on a story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall set in a care home, a film whose coolly maintained claustrophobic mood and bravura performances make up for the slight narrative blurring towards the end. It’s a movie about bullying and elder abuse – more specifically, elder-on-elder abuse – and it is always most chilling when it sticks to the realist constraints of what could actually happen.

The locale is an un-luxurious residential care facility where a retired judge is now astonished to find himself; this is Stefan Mortensen, played by Geoffrey Rush, who succumbed to a catastrophic stroke while passing judgment from the bench. He is a cantankerous and high-handed man, furious to be in this demeaning place and who,...

The 2020s are a new golden age for horror. The once-derided genre is gaining long-deserved respect and even the red carpet treatment. In 2024, A-list stars took prominent roles in some of the year’s best and scariest flicks. Heretic featured Hugh Grant as the cheerful cult leader-slash-college professor-slash-titular heretic terrorizing Mormon missionaries. Brat Pack alum Demi Moore tackled the Hollywood machine in the gut-wrenching body horror The Substance. This time, it’s John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, two long-established, serious actors, who have charged into the horror renaissance, this time tackling an especially scary subject — senility and senior abuse.

Directed by James Ashcroft, a New Zealand actor with an impressive directing roster, The Rule of Jenny Pen is already poised to be the most disturbing horror thriller of the year. Based on the short story of the same name by Owen Marshall, the story follows the imperious and arrogant yet...

Whenever you get veteran stars on the level of John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush in leading roles on screen, attention must be paid.

This teaming, and opportunity for Lithgow (79) and Rush (73) in an industry that doesn’t often offer this kind of chance for its veteran stars. is rare. But in director James Ashcroft’s creepy nursing home drama The Rule of Jenny Pen they get one and go for it with no brakes applied. It is deliriously delicious to watch, if sometimes difficult to digest.

Actually, it is almost impossible to see this film and not compare it to the swath of horror films offered to veteran golden age stars, well past their prime, in the 1960s with everything from Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte to Lady in a Cage, Dead Ringer, What’s The Matter With Helen? and on and on. But the movie that comes firmly to mind...

The Rule of Jenny Pen took audiences by surprise at Fantastic Fest 2024, where filmmaker and co-writer James Ashcroft (Coming Home in the Dark) earned Best Director for his adaptation of Owen Marshall's frightening short story. Unsurprisingly, both legendary leads, Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, took home Best Actor Awards on the festival circuit shortly before IFC and Shudder acquired the mystery horror.

How often have you wanted to turn to a rude movie patron and yell “Will you shut the fuck up?”

John Lithgow does just that to his The Rule of Jenny Pen co-star Geoffrey Rush in a PSA for Alamo Drafthouse.

In the humorous clip below, Lithgow performs Shakespeare’s Richard II while Rush is a nuance to society who can’t stay off his phone in the theater.

Praised by Stephen King as “one of the best movies I’ve seen this year,” The Rule of Jenny Pen hits theaters this weekend from IFC Films.

A former judge (Rush), confined to a secluded rest home and trapped within his stroke-ridden body, must stop an elderly psychopath (Lithgow) who employs a child’s puppet to abuse the home’s residents with deadly consequences.

George Henare, Nathaniel Lees, Thomas Sainbury, and Ian Mune round out the cast.

The New Zealand production...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during Fantastic Fest 2024. IFC Films opens “The Rule of Jenny Pen” in select theaters Friday, March 7, with a Shudder premiere on March 28.

When recommended a beach-read by a roommate he doesn’t want, the academic Judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) scoffs, “All those books say the same thing.”

10 years after Julianne Moore won her Oscar for “Still Alice,” moviegoers could argue something similar about an indie drama casting an elite actor as a dementia patient in rapid decline. Those audiences will be the least prepared for “The Rule of Jenny Pen” and may feel its singular wrath stronger than most. That’s an enviable position to be in for one of recent memory’s more unusual thrillers — even if its lack of narrative convention veers more vexing in the end.

Directed by James Ashcroft, this punishing dark genre blend acquired by Shudder...

James Ashcroft’s tyrannical elder care horror tale carries a psychological sting. The New Zealand filmmaker adapts Kiwi writer Owen Marshall a second time after his debut Coming Home in the Dark, “Jenny Pen” a more unlikely nightmare. Performance titans Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow confront themes of bullying, manipulation, and power struggles that echo relevance outside old folks’ homes—but the setting remains unique. Ashcroft and co-writer Eli Kent script unsettling helplessness within a facility where residents should feel cared for, instigating delicious chaos using a plastic-headed baby doll known as the menace Jenny Pen.

Rush stars as the honorable Judge Stefan Mortensen, who finds himself at Royal Pine Mews Care Home after suffering a debilitating stroke. His roommate is legendary rugby gunner Tony Garfield (George Henare), but Mortensen isn’t keen to make friends. He’s convinced he’ll rehabilitate, then move back to the big city—lofty...

Three decades on from Brian De Palma’s gleefully unhinged psychological thriller Raising Cain, John Lithgow has once again found a cinematic role to showcase his panache for exuding deranged evil. New Zealand director James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen, following up his Sundance-selected Coming Home in the Dark, finds Lithgow as Dave Crealy, a nursing-home resident who delights in unleashing a torrent of psychological and physical torment against cohabitants of the facility, most notably newly arrived Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush). While loogies are hawked and bags of piss thrown about in the film’s more absurdly mounted sequences, Ashcroft is digging into the underbelly of such facilities as caretakers ignore genuine feelings for the geriatric in order to maintain the status quo of keeping people temporarily happy and sedated. While the result is a half-entertaining showcase for Lithgow, a satisfying point to this interminable deprivation never manages to emerge.

The namesake for James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen is a creepy hand puppet. Her eye sockets are empty, turning what’s otherwise a nondescript, cherubic face into something sinister. Adored by Dave Crealey (John Lithgow), she’s part of a therapy program in an elder care facility, but the therapy isn’t working, what with the man incorporating the doll into the physical and sexual abuse that he visits upon the other residents.

A more conventional film might have suggested haunted goings-on, obfuscating where Dave ends and Jenny Pen begins. But Ashcroft’s thriller, which he and co-writer Eli Kent adapted from Owen Marshall’s short story, is all Dave, and Lithgow is phenomenal as the aging psychopath. Throughout, the actor’s body language exudes violent entitlement whether Dave is greedily hunched over his mealtime sludge or yanking on a man’s catheter.

Though he’s at the opposite end of life,...

John Lithgow (Conclave) and Geoffrey Rush (Shine) are currently doing the press rounds for their psychological horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen, which will be getting a theatrical release, courtesy of IFC Films, on March 7th – and during their Jake’s Takes interview, they were asked for their thoughts on the horror films that were coming out when they were getting their careers started in the 1970s and ’80s. This allowed us to get some nice horror references from Lithgow and Rush, with my favorite moment being when Rush admits that the original Friday the 13th, released in 1980, gave him a panic attack when he saw it in the theatre!

Rush said, “Friday the 13th gave me an attack in the theatre. I had a serious panic attack watching that film. But I was more drawn towards Alien. Alien, when it came out, just came out of nowhere, and you went,...

John Lithgow plays an elderly care home tyrant out to drive an arrogant and partially paralyzed judge, played by Geoffrey Rush, insane in the official trailer for The Rule of Jenny Pen, which dropped Monday.

The psychological thriller from director James Ashcroft, set to hit theaters March 7, has Lithgow playing Dave Crealy, a retirement home resident out to terrorize fellow residents with a sadistic game called “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” which includes a dementia doll wielded as an instrument of cruelty.

“Who rules?” a creepy Crealy, doll in hand, at one point in the trailer asks a tormented Judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush), who is bed ridden after suffering a near-fatal stroke. But the teaser foreshadows Mortensen soon engaged in a deadly struggle with the care home bully after his pleas for help to staff go unheeded and he looks to end Crealy’s reign of terror.

The Rule of Jenny Pen,...

Last month, we heard that John Lithgow (Conclave) and Geoffrey Rush (Shine) star in a psychological horror film called The Rule of Jenny Pen, which will be getting a theatrical release, courtesy of IFC Films, on March 7th – and now, with the release date just a few weeks away, IFC Films has unveiled a trailer for the film! You can check it out in the embed above.

Directed by James Ashcroft, who made his feature directorial debut with the 2021 horror thriller Coming Home in the Dark, The Rule of Jenny Pen has the following synopsis: Arrogant Judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush) suffers a near-fatal stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a retirement home. Resistant to the staff and distant from his friendly roommate, Mortensen soon clashes with seemingly gentle resident Dave Crealy (Lithgow) who secretly terrorizes the home with a sadistic game called “The Rule of Jenny Pen” while...

James Ashcroft’s debut Coming Home in The Dark (2021) is one of our bleakest contemporary thrillers and his sophomore feature The Rule of Jenny Pen (2025) is equally as dark. When it isn’t lingering in the frailty of the elderly or the sad reality of those same people being abandoned by their loved ones, it’s chock full of psychological & physical abuse at the hands of genuine madman. But don’t let that scare you away! The Rule of Jenny Pen is a brilliantly deranged slice of cinema with one hell of a scumbag for a villain.

Ashcroft and his writing partner have a real knack for bringing author Owen Marshall’s deliciously sadistic antagonists to life (Marshall being the original writer of the short stories which Ashcroft’s two features are based). John Lithgow, no slouch in the pantheon of evil bastards delivers a wickedly wacky performance as a retirement home predator,...

We all get what’s coming in the end with the official poster for The Rule of Jenny Pen.

Praised by Stephen King as “one of the best movies I’ve seen this year,” the film hits theaters on March 7 from IFC Films and will stream on Shudder later this year.

Geoffrey Rush stars as a former judge, confined to a secluded rest home and trapped within his stroke-ridden body,who must stop an elderly psychopath, played by John Lithgow, who employs a child’s puppet to abuse the home’s residents with deadly consequences.

George Henare, Nathaniel Lees, Thomas Sainbury, and Ian Mune round out the cast.

The New Zealand production directed by James Ashcroft from a script he co-wrote with Eli Kent, based on the short story of the same name by Owen Marshall. The three creatives previously collaborated on Coming Home in the Dark.

Keep an eye...

This March looks to be another good month for horror, with the theatrical releases of the sci-fi horror thriller Ash and the horror comedy Death of a Unicorn. Also joining the March lineup is the horror flick The Rule of Jenny Pen, and IFC Films has released a new teaser trailer to get people talking and excited about the upcoming movie.

Coming from IFC Films and Shudder, The Rule of Jenny Pen premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, in September 2024, and was later screened at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain in October of that year. Now, it's about to be available for a wider audience with its U.S. theatrical release on Friday, March 7, 2025. Like many other movies, it's based on another piece of work. It's a feature adaptation of New Zealand author Owen Marshall's short story of the same name.

James Ashcroft co-wrote the screenplay with...

John Lithgow (Conclave) and Geoffrey Rush (Shine) star in the psychological horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen, which will be getting a theatrical release, courtesy of IFC Films, on March 7th – and with that date swiftly approaching, a batch of stills from the film have arrived online, and along with a teaser poster. You can take a look at the images here in this article.

Directed by James Ashcroft, who made his feature directorial debut with the 2021 horror thriller Coming Home in the Dark, The Rule of Jenny Pen has the following synopsis: Arrogant Judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush) suffers a near-fatal stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a retirement home. Resistant to the staff and distant from his friendly roommate, Mortensen soon clashes with seemingly gentle resident Dave Crealy (Lithgow) who secretly terrorizes the home with a sadistic game called “The Rule of Jenny Pen” while wielding...

Gwen Van Dam, a veteran character actress of seven decades whose 140 credits spanned television, film and the Los Angeles stage, died Dec. 19 at her home in West LA. She was 96.

Per previous reporting attributed to her son Dirk Smillie, the cause of death was a recurrence of cancer.

Throughout her long-tenured career, Van Dam appeared in 1978’s Halloween with Jamie Lee Curtis, 1994’s Star Trek Generations with Patrick Stewart, the romantic war drama Coming Home featuring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight and the Sidney Poitier-helmed Gene Wilder pic Stir Crazy.

Among her television credits are illustrious series like Days of Our Lives, Gilmore Girls, Knots Landing, ER, Moonlighting, The Brady Bunch, Maude, Owen Marshall, New Girl, Modern Family and Criminal Minds.

On the music video side of things, she appeared in visual works for U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Panic! At the Disco and heavy metal band Mastodon.

An exclusive brand-new image from The Rule Of Jenny Pen gives fans a horrifying look at Jenny Pen herself. The sneak peek features the villainous bald doll staring straight ahead with an ominous glow in her eyes. The psychological thriller, based on a short story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall, premiered on September 19, 2024, at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The film was then acquired by American streaming service Shudder and is slated for release in 2025.

‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’ is a 2024 horror film directed by James Ashcroft, based on a short story by Owen Marshall. The movie stars Geoffrey Rush as Judge Stefan Mortensen, who suffers a stroke and is forced to live in a retirement home, where he faces terror from John Lithgow’s character, Dave Crealy.

Crealy uses a dementia doll, Jenny Pen, to torment the residents, and when Mortensen’s complaints go ignored, he decides to stop Crealy’s cruelty himself. The film features a strong supporting cast, including Nathaniel Lees, Thomas Sainbury, and Ian Mune.

The movie already premiered during Fantastic Fest on 19 September, but the Shudder premiere will arrive later in 2025.

ScreenRant revealed a new exclusive image from the movie that shows the puppet, a bald baby doll with glowing eyes.

Source

In the upcoming film, the creepy puppet plays a big role, but the story also explores deeper themes,...

When you purchase through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

If you are a horror fan then there is a big chance that you might have heard about the horror streaming service Shudder, and if you have its subscription you might be wondering what’s in store for you in December 2024. Don’t worry there is a host of new and old horror movies coming to the service in the upcoming month and we have listed the 10 best movies coming to Shudder in December 2024.

Coming Home in the Dark (December 1) Credit – MPI Media Group

Coming Home in the Dark is a psychological horror thriller film directed by James Ashcroft who also co-wrote the screenplay with Eli Kent. Based on the 1995 short story of the same name by Owen Marshall, the 2021 film follows a high-school teacher and his family on a road trip but they are soon captured by...

From director James Ashcroft, who first rocked the horror community with his feature debut Coming Home in the Dark (2021), comes another Owen Marshall adaptation, The Rule of Jenny Pen, starring stage and screen legends John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush. The movie celebrated its World Premiere at this year's Fantastic Fest where Collider's Perri Nemiroff caught up with Ashcroft and Rush to talk about bringing the short story from page to screen.

Horror has always had an issue with old people. The genre tends to view the geriatric body as an object of fear rather than tackling the realities of the aging process itself in all its complexity. For every Relic (2020), a film that treats the ravages of time and decay with respect, there’s The Front Room (2024), a horror yarn predicated on the seemingly acceptable prejudice that old people are just plain scary and gross. But James Ashcroft’s Fantastic Fest opener, The Rule of Jenny Pen, is the all-too-rare horror thriller that treats aging with all the dignity it deserves without ignoring the abject, all too relatable terror of losing yourself to the relentless march of time.

The film opens with Judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) suffering a public stroke as he’s handing down a sentence. Humiliated, but in need of rehabilitation, he checks into Royale Pine Mews, an...

David Soul, who starred alongside Paul Michael Glaser on the 1970s’ ABC buddy cop show Starsky and Hutch and had a No. 1 hit with the song “Don’t Give Up on Us,” has died. He was 80.

Soul died Thursday after “a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family,” his wife, Helen Snell, said in a statement.

“He shared many extraordinary gifts in the world as actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and dear friend,” she said. “His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.”

Soul also appeared for two seasons on the 1968-70 ABC show Here Come the Brides, played one of the corrupt young motorcycle cops brought down by Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan in the thriller Magnum Force (1973) and stood out as a terrified vampire hunter in the 1979 Stephen King CBS miniseries Salem’s Lot.

On two...

Lara Parker, who found the role of a lifetime at just 28 years old when she was cast by Dark Shadows producer Dan Curtis as the beautiful, vengeful and altogether evil witch Angelique Bouchard Collins, died October 12 in her sleep in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer. She was 84.

Her death was announced by producer Jim Pierson of Dan Curtis Productions, on behalf of Parker’s family.

“I’m heartbroken, as all of us are who knew and loved her,” said her Dark Shadows co-star and longtime friend Kathryn Leigh Scott in a statement. “She graced our lives with her beauty, talent and friendship, and we are all richer for having had her in our lives.”

Parker, who also authored four popular Dark Shadows-related novels from 1998-2016, arrived on the supernatural soap opera in 1967, not long after Canadian actor Jonathan Frid had been cast as vampire Barnabas Collins. Frid...

It is New Zealand-based Māori filmmaker James Ashcroft’s second feature following his debut.

Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow are set to star in James Ashcroft’s thriller The Rule Of Jenny Pen, based on the short story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall, that will shoot later this year. Charades is handling international sales and CAA Media Finance domestic rights.

Set within the confines of a aged care facility, Rush stars as a conceited judge who suffers a near fatal stroke that sees him placed in convalescence where he refuses to cooperate with the facility’s staff or communicate with his roommate.

Kathryn Hays, who in 1972 started playing the trouble-making homewrecker Kim Sullivan in As the World Turns and by the soap’s cancelation in 2010 had aged with her character to become the beloved matriarch Kim Hughes, died March 25 in Fairfield, Ct. She was 87.

Her death was announced today in the Connecticut Post.

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery

In addition to her long-running role on As the World Turns — with her 38-year-stint, she was the fourth-longest-serving cast member when the series went off the air — Hays is remembered by fans of the original Star Trek for her memorable guest portrayal of Gem in the 1968 episode “The Empath.” As the beautiful alien who gives the episode its title, Hays rescued an injured Capt. Kirk by briefly absorbing his injuries.

Born in Princeton, Il, Hays began her professional acting career in the early 1960s with appearances on such series as Hawaiian Eye,...

Arlene Golonka, best known for her portrayal of waitress Millie on the classic CBS sitcom The Andy Griffith Show and its spinoff Mayberry R.F.D., died Monday at a West Hollywood memory care facility following a battle with Alzheimer’s. She was 85.

Her death was announced by her friend, the literary agent Cary Kozlov.

Golonka, who made her Broadway debut in 1958’s short-lived The Night Circus before landing stage roles in 1962’s Come Blow Your Horn and 1963’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, already had made numerous appearances on television prior to her breakthrough role on The Andy Griffith Show in 1967, among them Car 54, Where Are You?, The Doctors, The Flying Nun and The Big Valley.

She made her first Griffith appearance on Oct. 16, 1967, in an episode that introduced her as Millie Hutchins, initially intended as a love interest for bookish bachelor Howard Sprague (played by Jack Dodson...

An expensive new car slouches on the side of a deserted country road, unoccupied and unattended, while one passenger door hangs open, creaking disconsolately in the afternoon breeze. It’s the kind of opening image that immediately warns you the film to come is up to nothing good, or at least nothing pleasant: “Coming Home in the Dark” never tells us who was behind the wheel of that abandoned car, though it gives us enough indirect detail to paint a pretty vivid, stomach-turning picture of what went down. At first glance, New Zealand filmmaker James Ashcroft’s unforgiving, tightly wound debut appears to be a nihilistic horror excursion in the blood-leaking vein of “Wolf Creek,” before its torture-porn trappings give way to a moral weight as unanticipated by the characters as it is by the audience.

Though it’s plenty nasty and nervy enough to earn its spot in Sundance’s Midnight program,...

Susan Lacy's documentary Spielberg debuts October 7th on HBO, trots out an all-star team of interviewees – from film critics to famous friends, the Toms (Cruise and Hanks) to God herself, a.k.a. Oprah Winfrey. The voices film buffs will undoubtedly want to hear from the most, however, belong to his fellow "movie brats": Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, who all talk at length about their heady New Hollywood days alongside Spielberg in the early Seventies. All of them partied together, bounced...