One of the dramatic highlights of spring’s streaming schedule was watching the final season of Succession. In the last chapter, the tenuous bonds between the Roy family siblings frayed in the aftermath of the loss of their patriarch. And as the brothers and sister fought over who would rule their late father’s media empire, it was Siobhan Roy (Sarah Snook) who briefly flickered as the heroic conscience of the Roy clan even if Kendall actually was “the eldest boy.”
The Sarah Snook-starring psychological horror film, Run Rabbit Run hit theaters about the same time Succession creator Jesse Armstrong announced that the show’s fourth season would be its last. The timing might have been significant because Run Rabbit Run came and went from the big screen without ever pinging my radar. The film had a brief run as the top movie on Netflix when it came to the platform this summer, and now that we’re heading into spooky movie season, it’s poised to tighten its clammy grip on a new audience.
Sarah (Snook) is in mourning for her late father. Her mother is in a care facility with dementia. Sarah’s also divorced from her ex-husband who’s starting a new family with his new wife. This leaves Sarah as a single mom raising their daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre) who’s just a little too young to understand all the upheaval in her family, but just old enough to ask all the most awkward and provocative questions. This all might sound familiar to fans of Hereditary, The Babadook or even another Netflix horror film, Umma. Some critics and viewers have claimed that Run Rabbit Run is overly derivative. But I think its resonances with this recent, terrific spate of haunted house pictures is one of Run Rabbit Run’s strengths.
This is largely because Rabbit also boasts the outstanding core performances that allowed a bonkers movie like Hereditary to find an avid audience well beyond the confines of the horror genre. Fans of Succession are more than familiar with Snook’s admirable acting chops and her portrayal of Sarah finds her exploring painful familial connections a world away from Siobhan Roy’s hard-as-nails schemes and manipulations. Snook does a lot of heavy lifting in this film which fully rotates around her relationships with a close constellation of characters. There’s also the added challenge that all of those relationships are curtailed by lack of communication: her mother can’t remember important details; her ex-husband has to be treated at a distance in his new life; Mia is just a confused little kid. All of these find Sarah flailing wordlessly between frustration and bewilderment as only an actress with Snook’s prowess could manage. LaTorre’s Mia goes toe-to-toe with Sarah/Snook and the young performer is one of the most promising new actors to emerge in 2023. Mia is a sweet and playful little girl, but after she takes-in a pet rabbit, her behavior becomes erratic. Run Rabbit Run is somewhere between a haunted house film and a possession story, and it works because LaTorre is disturbingly convincing as the channel for all the bad karma.
Run Rabbit Run has a terrible score on Rotten Tomatoes because it’s slow and obtuse. It’s brimming with unresolved tension and scant on direct explanations. Director Daina Reid gives us a ghostly poem of a film that respects its audience enough to reveal its mysteries, but not speak them out loud. The results are dramatic and disturbing, and worth your attention during the dark chilly nights ahead.
Run Rabbit Run is streaming on Netflix.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.