“I always miss people I’ve never met,” 7-year-old Mia tells her mother Sarah in an early scene of Run Rabbit Run.
An innocent utterance of a past-her-years, only mildly alarming sentence, startling Sarah (Succession‘s Sarah Snook) and the public. Kids can be creepy and Diana Reid‘s feature debut, starring an impressive Lily LaTorre as Mia, falls squarely into the canon of precious, precocious kids who scare the hell out of their parents.
Run Rabbit Run, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, relies on one too many horror tropes, borrowed and crammed into an atmospheric story set in South Australia. The result feels unoriginal, though it ticks all the boxes of an entertaining, creepy watch. Referring to secrets buried in all of our own homes, this is perfect streaming material – no wonder Netflix acquired the distribution rights before the film even premiered in Park City.
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Run Rabbit Run is about guilt and sadness
Mia’s first sentence might scare someone off by suggesting that this is a ghost story. In a way, it’s that she develops a sinister, if understandable, interest in the loved ones who are no longer with her. Or never really was.
An unresolved trauma looms on the little girl’s seventh birthday, anticipated by a cute, affectionate rabbit who has a crush on her. But Run Rabbit Run is as much about guilt as it is about grief, with Snook’s brilliantly ambiguous turn as Sarah being the best part of it.
In the first act, we learn that the protagonist has a strained relationship with her mother Joan (Greta Scacchi), who is in an institution following the death of her husband Al (Neil Melville). Mia has never met her grandma, yet she becomes uncontrollably fascinated by her and harasses Sarah to finally introduce them.
Sarah, a mother bear in her girl boss veneer, is less than impressed with Mia’s new pristine furry friend. Like her daughter’s obsession with Joan. Despite her best efforts, neither will disappear. Nor the unsettling feeling that she and Mia might not be alone in their home.
A matriarchal family story
Like fellow Aussie horror Relic, Reid’s film also presents a matriarchal family at risk of being turned upside down by miscommunication and closet skeletons, both figuratively and literally.
Joan’s onset of dementia plays a beneficial role in Mia’s assurance that her name is, in fact, Alice. Just like Sarah’s younger sister, who went missing decades ago. When she was seven, to be exact.
Intense eye contact and awkward questions Mia puts her mother to the test, unraveling the woman’s carefully crafted reality through imperceptible stares and an increasingly defensive posture. But who is Sarah actually trying to protect?
The idea of a connection between Mia and Alice splashes through the film’s central act through repetitive, not-so-subtle symbolism. Mia’s new pet, the pink rabbit mask she wears everywhere, the nickname Bunny… All elements wink at Alice in Wonderland.
Cinematographer Bonnie Elliot’s camera drops the angle in crucial shots to mirror the rabbit’s POV, while simultaneously suggesting that something or someone might be visiting from below.
Sarah’s past may come back to bite her
The moody Australian sky casts a shadow over Sarah’s dysfunctional home life, as her ex-husband Pete (Damon Herriman) informs her that he and his new partner Denise (Georgina Naidu) are trying to conceive.
“I thought we agreed that Mia would be an only child,” Sarah replies, and you sense there’s more to her words than just a vestige of possession over an ex.
Just like with the rabbit, the main character wants to get rid of all the vermin that could affect her carefully constructed world. It soon becomes clear that the protagonist’s controlling attitude could bite her.
Run Rabbit Run’s Final Act cashes in on its predictable plot
Reid’s film takes a turn in the final act, where Sarah is determined to leave her past behind at the very place where disaster struck: her childhood home.
This is the part where Hannah Kent’s script slips into a menagerie of horror clichés. Like reading from a How To Write A Scary Story 101 textbook, Run Rabbit Run features a shed with rusty tools, a remote home immersed in unforgiving nature, and more family portraits than you can take in a lifetime.
It’s a lot and takes time away from some undercooked parts of the movie. Sarah and Joan’s relationship would have benefited from more scenes, but is limited to the few visits they are allowed at the clinic. Nevertheless, Scacchi’s character still manages to deliver one of the most chilling lines in the movie, giving way to finding the key to open all those locked doors from forever.
The finale makes up for the film’s predictability and offers a very welcome, bold twist on the mother-daughter horror dynamic. Using the inescapable structure of moral fables, the film’s final moments play out an “eye for an eye” logic. Without reservation, the characters reap what they sow. There are also no tricks to make terrible prospects more palatable to the public.
Palatable is Reid’s film, a well-executed horror film that makes the most of its predecessors’ legacy without adding much to the canon. You know where this is going and you’re happy to ride along, even if it’s familiar and unsettling. It works fine, but unlike the memory of the people you’ve lost, it won’t haunt you for long.
Stefania Sarrubba is a feminist entertainment writer from London, UK. Traumatized at a young age by Tim Curry’s Pennywise and Dario Argento’s films, she grew up believing horror wasn’t her thing. Until she got her teeth into cannibal films with a female protagonist. Jamie.
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