Good afternoon, House of Madness residents:
When it comes to fear, often times it's what we're anticipating in our heads rather than with our eyes, and nothing is scarier than our own imaginations. Add mental illness into the mix, and you've got a concoction of terror so concentrated, you'd better have a map to find your way out of your own head. For Sarah (Sarah Snook), this is a map frequently traveled with landmarks and destinations she's visited before, but when you try and combine old maps with new ones, navigating the inner and outer terrain can prove to be quite difficult.
Sarah lives alone with her daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre), as her marriage has long fallen apart with her ex-husband Pete (Damon Herriman), who is now raising a young child with his girlfriend Denise (Naomi Rukavina) and has another one on the way, so his time for Mia is very limited. Sarah is a fertility doctor, so she is very familiar with the circle of life, especially since her mother Joan (Greta Scacchi) is in a care home suffering with dementia; life is hard for Sarah, but she has Mia, and that's all that matters.
It's Mia's seventh birthday, and although everything is lined up to be perfect, things don't go exactly as planned; Pete shows up with three year old Toby, and while the children are playing as the adults chat around the dinner table, Toby hits Mia and Sarah loses her temper with him and begins yelling. No big deal really, but Sarah's loss of control and her emotional ineptitude displayed so far throughout the film leave us wondering if there's more beneath the surface than we're currently privy to. Later in the week, Denise makes a comment over the telephone about Sarah's sister, and she quickly begins to unravel. Add the fact that Mia insists she 'misses' Sarah's mother Joan (whom she's never met), and Sarah is starting to wonder if in fact the entire world is against her.
Sarah finally decides to bring Mia to meet her estranged mother, and things go worse than anticipated; Joan keeps calling Mia 'Alice', yet doesn't recognize Sarah in the slightest. The innocent mention of the name Alice has an immediate impact on Sarah, and her descent into madness has been initiated all over again. Is everyone against Sarah in some sort of perverted plot to take Mia away from her, or has Sarah's past once again caught up to her, forcing her to relive all of her past traumas which she has so painstakingly buried deep inside her mind, wanting to be forgotten forever?
"Run Rabbit Run" deals with some pretty heavy subject matter dealing with mental illness, paranoia, and anxiety and isn't shy about exploiting all of it on screen for us to see and decipher between what is real, and what is fiction. Although the audience is well aware there is a past secret at play during the film, the tension is thick and the atmosphere is dire, which always makes for a pretty decent film. If you're here for monsters or jump scares, you'd best find something else, but if you find true horror comes from one person's own mind, then you're definitely in for a treat.
Madness Meter: 6.7/10
