Run (2020) Hard to believe this nasty little triviality was meant for an international theatrical release....
But now with its delusions of adequacy deflated, it sits on Hulu......to no doubt enjoy a long shelf life as trapped-at-home Pandemic fodder........an idiotic but entertaining gruesome guilty pleasure to consume after you've worked your way through all the other streaming sludge.....
(And what a true shame that Lionsgate executives missed out on pulling off their sick, sick joke..... by.opening this tale of matriarchal evil on Mother's Day......)
Like the mini-series, "The Act", this film takes its inspiration from the bizarre, stranger-than-fiction case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose demented mother raised her to believe she suffered from a massive amount of medical issues, imprisoning her as a mock invalid.
"Run" condenses this lifetime of perpetual misery into a swift, trim 90 minutes of "gotcha!" horror tropes.......filled with moments meant to make you drop your tub 'o buttered popcorn.
To its credit (if you're grading this on a curve reserved for cheesy scare-fests), the movie wastes no time at all in setting up a desperate duel of wills and wits between the mad, mad mom (Sarah Paulson) and her terrified wheelchair bound 17 year old daughter....(Kiera Allen, who's actually wheelchair bound in real life.....)
With "Run" and her star turn in the Netflix series "Ratched", Sarah Paulson has quickly established herself as the Bette Davis of our era.......
Not the Hollywood Golden Age Bette Davis.......but the mid 1960's Bette Davis when the veteran actress re-invented herself as a horror movie Medusa ("Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte", "The Nanny")
Yes, Paulson's that scary......and woe to anyone who turns their back on her.......
We can well understand why the film maintains its fever pitch throughout its 90 minute length........most of the suspense sequences and plot twists are so brazenly ridiculous, they require a total suspension of rational thought.
And fittingly, the film's final shot closes things out with an unintentionally funny howler of a moment.......with Paulson decked out like the guy who chose the wrong Holy Grail cup in the Indiana Jones movie.
Depending on how desperate you are as we tumble into further plague hell (Pre-vaccines), we'd normally recommend this only for hardcore horror fans........
.......but if you giggled your way through 'Ratched', you might find this an equal hoot and a half.......2 stars(**).
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