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Australia · 2023
1h 40m
Director Daina Reid
Starring Sarah Snook, Lily LaTorre, Greta Scacchi, Damon Herriman
Genre Horror, Thriller
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When her young daughter starts exhibiting strange and startling behavior, a fertility doctor with a long-held sense of the rigid differences between life and death must not only confront the values and beliefs she has always held, but she must contend with a ghost from her past.
Bolstered by Mark Bradshaw and Marcus Whale’s electronic drone soundtrack and Bonnie Elliott’s atmospheric cinematography, Run Rabbit Run could’ve used some more forward momentum. It lacks outright scares and novelty but makes up for it in some psychological depth. Reid’s film may not reach the profundity it strives for, but how many horror titles even strive for anything these days?
The story certainly doesn’t break new ground, and given the modest nature of the movie, there’s a bit of impatience to get where it’s going; still, thanks to Snook and LaTorre’s beyond-her-years performance it’s never less than watchable.
Run Rabbit Run never gets past the sensation of being a Mad Libs horror movie, where those blank spaces are filled in with the most obvious tropes.
While Snook does all she can to give the experience some heft, Run Rabbit Run is a horror film in search of something greater others have already achieved that it is never able to find.
The Independent by Clarisse Loughrey
Run Rabbit Run is certainly fluent in the visual language of eerie, effective horror. Its metaphors, though, are all mumbled.
It’s capable of quickly upshifting from tense to intense, and also of having the appearance of a scary movie rather than being one.
The Irish Times by Donald Clarke
Not everything works here. Too much is overfamiliar. But Run Rabbit Run retains a clammy grip throughout. Definitely worth a stream.
While Snook and LaTorre give it their all, Run Rabbit Run is just another example of a movie not working unless it knows what it wants to be.
Screen Daily by Fionnuala Halligan
Sarah Snook turns in a terrific performance which is always true to the character at every point of a complex arc.
Screen Rant by Graeme Guttmann
Unfortunately, Run Rabbit Run is less than the sum of its parts, and even an excellent turn from Sarah Snook can't elevate the movie beyond its basest instincts.
Sadly, a generic script doesn’t aid the film’s overall ambitions. A little less than the sum of its parts, Run Rabbit Run is ultimately more intriguing than outright terrifying.
New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Gloomy and vague, Run Rabbit Run is a moody, noncommittal tease replete with the usual spectral signifiers: clammy dreams, scary drawings, unsettling masks. Snook does everything but rend her garments in a performance that only emphasizes the busy vapidity of Hannah Kent’s script.
What it lacks in thematic newness, Run Rabbit Run makes up for in the sophistication of its moment-to-moment scarifying and its performances from Sarah Snook and outstanding newcomer Lily LaTorre.
The Playlist by Marya E. Gates
Run Rabbit Run does nothing to transcend its influences, finds nothing insightful to say about the various familial relationships its fails to explore, traps its talented cast in unmemorable characters, and — worst of all for a horror film — contains no scenes that are truly chilling and or any imagery that will stick in the viewer’s mind once the film is over.
Snook, of course, is typically excellent, fresh from her turn as Succession’s petulant, scheming Shiv Roy in another spiky role here – but even her performance, as it heightens towards a crazed delirium, recalls Toni Collette’s in Hereditary.
RogerEbert.com by Monica Castillo
Run Rabbit Run is a solid, spooky tale without anything too flashy like a Babadook to haunt our dreams and memes but chilling enough to make us sit up in our chairs and scan the screen for the next sign of danger.
Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray
Sarah Snook gives a riveting performance as a mother going mad in Run Rabbit Run, a psychological thriller that’s mostly effective, even though its story is familiar and somewhat threadbare.
Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper
It’s a great-looking ride with a few legitimate jump-scares and some suitably chilling imagery, but the finale leaves us frustrated and let down, wondering: Is that all there is?
A predictably terrific Sarah Snook goes full-blown feral in the Australian horror movie Run Rabbit Run, but its final-act destination isn’t enough to justify the journey.
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