To help pay her sick kid's medical bills, a 24-year old single mother is recording her audition for some kind of reality show, I guess. In the meantime, however, she has her stripper friend coach her on how to dance for quick cash. They do a few private parties (all of which are recorded...) before the friend is beaten by a client and needs her protege to take her place for a high-paying gig in a secret location for an unknown guy. She reluctantly goes and is held captive by some insane religious wackos who are attempting to 'rehabilitate' sex workers in an abandoned mental hospital.
As is usually the case in these types of movies, the hand-held 'gimmick' is unreasonably prevalent considering the situations presented. The cameras are always positioned perfectly and there's even a music score that pipes in a few times that destroyed any potential 'realism' the movie was trying to suggest. Also, many of the scenes are much too drawn out and dull and there's very little in the way of carnage or anything even impactful, for that matter. Tony Todd is in the movie for, what had to be, 25 seconds, while Michael Rooker is in it a tiny bit more, here and there, but is WAY underutilized. The only thing "Penance" had going for it was good looking women who do some stripping in the beginning. The rest of this movie is a total bore-fest.
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