Netflix’s newest horror film, Run Rabbit Run, an acquisition out of Sundance, has all of the hallmarks of the style fare seen in recent times. A grieving mom, a younger (and unsettling) little one, and generational trauma. There is a discomfiting rating punctuated by warbling strings that crawl below your pores and skin. The environment is moody. The usually sun-drenched Australian countryside is shrouded in clouds and dipped in grays and browns. Sadly, Run Rabbit Run is lower than the sum of its elements, and even a wonderful flip from Sarah Snook cannot elevate the film past its basest instincts.
Snook’s Sarah is a loving mom; within the opening moments of Run Rabbit Run, she dotes over Mia (Lily LaTorre), stopping simply shy of helicopter guardian. Mia, then again, leans into the creepy little one trope instantly, asking if an individual named Joan might be attending her party. When Sarah asks why she misses Joan, an individual Mia has by no means met, the kid says, “I miss folks I’ve by no means met on a regular basis,” as unsettling strings play over the title card. Run Rabbit Run isn’t delicate in its intentions, nevertheless it does a great job of setting the scene for what’s to return. The Australian city the place Sarah and Mia stay is tormented by storms early on within the movie, muted blues and grays casting gloomy shadows over Snook’s involved face as Mia’s conduct turns into more and more unusual (together with one very creepy rabbit masks made out of development paper).
Anybody conversant in Snook’s latest work in Succession (for which she ought to most actually win an Emmy) will not be shocked by her flip in Run Rabbit Run. Joan, the mysterious determine Mia retains mentioning, seems to be Sarah’s estranged mom who was put in a house by Sarah’s father earlier than he died. A disastrous go to to Sarah’s mother vegetation an insidious seed in Mia’s head, one which may be manifesting in methods not grounded within the pure world as they keep at Sarah’s childhood house. A lot of the concern right here comes from the best way director Daina Reed lenses the home, letting the pictures linger over shadowy corners, yellowed partitions, and the huge Australian panorama that surrounds the dilapidated house.
After its set-up, Run Rabbit Run ticks all of the packing containers — creepy drawings, footsteps padding by way of a cavernous house, even creepier animals, misinterpretations of what Mia goes by way of, and the implication that grief over her father’s loss of life and her long-missing sister is inflicting Sarah to spiral. On this so-called period of elevated horror (a phrase that’s rapidly dropping any that means), Run Rabbit Run is, sadly, nothing new, a retread of style components that make it really feel all-too-familiar. Its scare issue is actually diluted by this familiarity, at the same time as Lily LaTorre’s more and more unhinged efficiency as Mia takes on the moniker of Alice, Sarah’s presumably deceased sister.
Because the film nears its conclusion, although, Mia’s antics turn into extra grating than unsettling, one thing that’s key to the movie’s central thriller. Is Sarah descending into insanity or is one thing far more sinister at play? A 3rd act twist reveals that it could be each and Snook delivers the revelation with the required terror and delusion wanted to promote it, however the disparate strands of Run Rabbit Run by no means coalesce into one thing that appears like a cohesive complete. An indecipherable ending leaves an excessive amount of room for interpretation and little in the best way of precise depth on the subject of issues the movie desires to discover like grief, motherhood, and lingering trauma. Current tendencies in horror might have resulted in a few of the greatest movies the style has seen in years, however in addition they result in movies like this: A hole train that errors plot for depth.
Run Rabbit Run is now streaming on Netflix. The movie is 100 minutes lengthy and is rated TV-MA.