Common Sense Media Review
By Brian Costello
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Eerie, unsettling horror tale has family trauma, violence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Run Rabbit Run
What's the Story?
In RUN RABBIT RUN, Sarah (Sarah Snook) is a fertility doctor going through the grieving process in the aftermath of her father's recent passing. She's a single parent, raising her daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre), with the help of Mia's father, Pete (Damon Herriman), with whom Sarah is on good terms. Mia's behavior takes a strange turn shortly after she finds and keeps a white rabbit. She makes and constantly wears a bunny rabbit mask over her face, draws the same disturbing image on all of her papers and homework, and then begins to claim that she is Alice, the 7-year-old sister of Sarah who went missing when they were kids while under Sarah's watch. Things get even stranger when Sarah reluctantly agrees to take Mia to see Sarah's estranged mother, Joan, who suffers from early dementia in a nursing home -- Joan believes that she's seeing Alice again. They stay in Joan's house and Sarah's childhood home, and Sarah must contend with Mia's increasingly disturbing behavior while also confronting traumas she has long held at bay.
Is It Any Good?
This is a creepy and disturbing Australian horror movie that's a reflection on life and death, grieving and trauma. Run Rabbit Run makes excellent use of its Australian setting (somehow reminiscent of how the early Mad Max movies used the unique flora and fauna of the Outback to heighten the tension), and the acting talent, including Succession's Sarah Snook, is top-notch throughout. As young Mia, Lily LaTorre captures that spooky yet innocent quality that comes through when something's not right with young kids in horror movies.
What prevents this from being a truly great movie is an overreliance on the conventions and clichés of horror movies. There's entirely too much background mood music, which is distracting. Someone also needs to tell all aspiring directors at Horror Movie Film School to please knock it off with the "bloody nose" cliché. Some of the attempts at symbolism -- hallucinations of "blood on your hands" and the white rabbit -- are a little too on the nose. Still, the movie succeeds in conveying its uncomfortable themes.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about horror movies like Run Rabbit Run. How is this similar to and different from other horror movies that focus more on creepy and unsettling mystery than on violence and gore?
How does the movie explore themes of death and dying and the repression of traumatic memories?
How did the movie use music to heighten scary moments, or even the jump scares?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : June 28, 2023
- Cast : Sarah Snook , Damon Herriman , Lily LaTorre
- Director : Daina Reed
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Writer(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Horror
- Run time : 100 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : March 15, 2024
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