"Run Rabbit Run" underwhelms in spite of an arresting Sarah Snook

Run Rabbit Run (2023)

It’s not likely that a filmmaker makes a film just to have it compared to other films, but that sort of happens with director Daina Reid’s “Run Rabbit Run.” Acquired by Netflix right out of Sundance, this psychological horror drama is beautifully moody with a compelling lead performance by Sarah Snook, and yet, it underwhelms, frustratingly so. Not to sound glib, but this is “trauma horror” with an Australian accent.

Snook plays Dr. Sarah Gregory, a fertility doctor who has had experience with grief her whole life. She’s coping with the recent loss of her father and the estrangement from her mother who’s in a facility. She has an amicable relationship with her ex-husband (Damon Herriman), but Sarah has full custody of their daughter Mia (Lily Latorre), who has just turned 7. After wanting to keep a rabbit she finds in their yard, Mia starts acting strangely and showing resentment. She wears a bunny mask made out of pink paper. She starts having nosebleeds. She’s been drawing nightmarish pictures at school (and secretly at home). Pretty soon, Mia is asking Sarah about wanting to see Grandma Joan, whom she’s never met, and wanting to be called “Alice” because she insists that she is Alice. This all brings up complicated feelings and trauma from Sarah’s childhood. 

On the surface—a fraught Australian mother dealing with a child who’s acting out, as well as possibly supernatural goings-on—“Run Rabbit Run” inevitably compares itself to “The Babadook” (but also maybe a little of “Goodnight Mommy”). There will always be genre films about the horrors of motherhood and (Jamie Lee Curtis’ favorite “Halloween” interview buzzword) trauma. But this particular time, there’s just not enough here to fill what feels like a lot of inert “is it real?” wheel-spinning until an implicitly grim conclusion that will inspire more of a “is that it?” Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com.

Grade: C 

Netflix is releasing “Run Rabbit Run” (99 min.) to stream on June 28, 2023.