Are you up for a dark Australian supernatural thriller about a single mother played by an acclaimed actor who has to contend with increasingly weird behaviour from her spooky kid? Well, that’s The Babadook, and it rules. But if you want a new variation on that theme, Run Rabbit Run is now streaming on Netflix New Zealand.
Succession’s Sarah Snook is Sarah, whose life starts to be plagued by weird occurrences around the time of her daughter Mia’s (Lily LaTorre) seventh birthday, which comes on the heels of the death of Sarah’s father. It isn’t long before Mia is claiming to be Alice, Sarah’s long-dead sister, and demanding to be taken to see grandma Joan (Greta Scacchi), who she has never before met.
Is it a case of reincarnation, ala Audrey Rose? Possession, ala Hereditary? Something altogether weirder, ala Relic? And what’s with the stray white rabbit that has quietly invaded their house?
Directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Daina Reid, who has called the shots on episodes of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Offspring, The Handmaids Tale, The Outsider, and more, Run Rabbit Run comes to us from the pen of South Australian novelist Hannah Kent, known for her books Burial Rites, and Devotion. That’s a pretty good pedigree, and Kent’s atmospheric historical chillers speak to the film’s sombre, intimately unsettling tone.
We’re currently experiencing a bit of a fad for motherhood-themed psychological horror (Ari Aster has practically made a career out of it!) but it remains to be seen if Run Rabbit Run can hit the unnerving heights of some of the aforementioned gems. Still, spooky kids are always good value, and if nothing else, we can whack this one next to Celia on the shelf labelled “disturbing Australian indie fare featuring rabbits.” A regrettably underexplored subgenre if ever there was one. So hop to it!
