Another was Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures, " a sensational penny-dreadful which pretended to lay bare the secrets of the lurid life behind the walls of a 19th century convent.

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The quiet strength of Penny Dreadful is once again the way the characters interact, the relationships between the eccentric, often elderly tenants and the crowd of rambunctious children that have the run of the place all summer.

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In this grab bag of narrative trickery, he tells the penny-dreadful tale of the house painter Guy Maddin (Eric Maahs), who is ordered by his mother to return to the island lighthouse where he grew up and give it two coats of paint.

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