Published by Mason Oldridge, 10 July 2023
CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Netflix’s new psychological horror film may have people talking, but not always in a positive way.
The Australian movie sees mother Sarah become increasingly worried about her 7-year-old daughter Mia’s troubling behaviour following their adoption of a stray rabbit. Mia begins claiming to be Alice and her strange acting becomes clear when it is revealed Alice was Sarah’s younger sister who went missing when she was the same age. Upon hallucinating, Sarah accidentally hurts Mia and it is finally revealed that Sarah pushed Alice off a cliff to her death following a fight and hid the truth. By the ending, we are left wondering how much was Mia actually possessed and how much was in Sarah’s mind.
The plot is decent but told in a boring way. For the most part, we are in the dark about why Mia is acting strange and it is frustrating rather than intriguing not knowing why. Therefore, it is more a relief as opposed to a shock to discover the truth. Furthermore, aside from the occurrences when Mia unnervingly appears in doorways, it is not scary. There is an unsettling atmosphere throughout but nothing explicitly horrifying. Also, the rabbit serves little to no purpose to the plot. It is unclear whether the rabbit acts as a motif to represent something such as bringing about the soul of Alice and, given the film’s title and the rabbit’s regular appearances, we spend the film waiting to discover the rabbit’s relation to the story or expect something bad will happen involving it.
Run Rabbit Run has a worthy plot to run with, though tells the story in an uninspiring manner to which viewers are likely to disengage before the first revelation.
4/10