Based on Franz Xaver Kroetz's play, which is in turn based on a true story, this film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder tells the story of a very young girl who, after persuading a local boy to become her lover, induces the lad to kill her father,
A hardened criminal fresh out of the joint takes a job as a handyman in a dilapidated house; but the twisted horrors he finds inside are enough to send anyone running. So why does he stay? And why are so many people drawn to Penance Lane?