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Overall Rating : 6/10
Directed By : Joseph Guzman
Christina DeRosa
Cheryl Lyone
Peter Tahoe
Johnny Winscher
Supplied By : Breaking Glass Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : January. 28, 2009
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| PLOT Catherine and Rebecca are two Catholic School girls going door-to-door selling Religious paraphernalia in order to pay for their books and education. Things go horribly wrong when they knock on the wrong door in the wrong neighborhood. | ||||
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| THE REVIEW Is it just me, or does it seem as if the creativity pool as far as film making in the 1970s or even 1980s was much bigger than what we are fed in today's modern cinema. In the 1970s you had original films that focused on a variety of subjects, subjects such as cars, martial arts, but there was one subject that had a good amount of exploitation and that was rape and revenge. Considered sleazy, the subject was the center of many films; MS. 45, KILLER : THEY CALL HER ONE EYE, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, and perhaps the most popular, 1968'S THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. In recent decades, such violent films have been ceased, and if we are to see anything close to the type of violence brought forth in the film's previously mentioned, it's in a tamer form(see the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT REMAKE -coincidentally, a film in which I still enjoyed more than a lot of people. RUN! BITCH RUN! is Writer/Director Joseph Guzman and Writer Robert James Hayes II's,dedicated attempt at reverting back to that former brand of violent exploitation cinema, and in my opinion, the end result is fairly decent, but not quite there on all points. In the film, we follow 2 schoolgirls Rebecca and Catherine. Hoping to raise funds, the girls are trekking the countryside hocking religious swag to any and all whom will bite. Turned away by many(and even ran off by a shotgun toting woman and one instance), the girls decide to take the advice of one man, and try their luck in the nearby town of Moseley(a town the man assures them that needs some religious guidance). Well, as fate would have it(and predictably so) the girls end up "a-knockin'" on the wrong door, at the wrong time. The house in which they have come upon belongs to Lobo and his to cohorts, Clint and Marla. The house unbeknownst to our schoolgirls serves as a place of business for the three as they rape and kill the young girls whom come through, and then later sell the corpses off the a slimy mechanic for his own personal "pleasure", if you will. As it looks, Rebecca and Catherine appear to be next in line, but after Rebecca is quickly killed off in an accident, they decide to vury her - and then have a little fun with Catherine - who is the virgin of the two. They take her to the woods for a game of what Lobo calls, "Run Bitch Run", in which he proceeds to hunt down and rape the girl. They eventually leave Catherine for dead, but luckily she is brought to the local hospital, where she'd make a recovery. Flipping the script so to speak, Catherine escapes the facility donning a nurses outfit, with only one thing in mind....slaughtering all whom wronged her. The plot for RUN! BITCH RUN!, like all rape/revenge flicks, is a powerful one, one that immediately conjures up visions of a film of serious nature, at least that's what I was expecting. Instead of being 100% serious, the filmmakers here decided to go the "Tarantino" route for their project. Like most Taratino's films, RUN! BITCH RUN! has all of the grittiness of the films the inspire it, but it also tries it's hand at mixing in a distinct level of humor as well. For me, this film was indeed a really fun time to sit through, but it does has a bit of unevenness to it. I found that some of the humor and acting was a bit of "hit and miss", some intended funny parts were, and others were not. On the acting side of things there are some great performances, and then there are some rather mediocre ones as well....but I can make a guess that some of it was intentional> After all, it is mimicking the Grindhouse area, and era in which saw plenty bad performances emerge. Also to further that 70s feel that they were trying to achieve, the filmmakers utilize a soundtrack that was common place in these films - the roaring synthesizer(or whatever it is that's being used) laced tracks that all most seem generic because so many films used ones quite similar. In fact, I thought that on of the tracks used many times in RUN! BITCH RUN! sounded similar to the them that Robert Rodriguez created for "Cherry Darling's" beginning strip sequence in PLANET TERROR(it was almost a little too similar, really). I don't have a problem with this type of score, as a feel it's essential for this type of throwback film, but in my opinion the points in the film is which the tracks were used, were a little off, which was another one of the film's flaws. I mean is a "groovy" track really the right one to use in a scene in which a woman is being chased and raped? To close, RUN! BITCH RUN! is a fun film to take in, but be warned, it could almost immediately be classified as a b-movie, everything is a mixed selection, the story, the acting, the music but when you combine it all, you get a film with good intentions behind it, and that is fun in the end. For most people, that is all that they wish to find in a Horror movie. |
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| GORE
METER 5.5/10 Blood splatter, impalments, gunshot wounds, a stabbing and one being anally raped with a machete! |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 4/10 As I said it's mostly synthesizer stuff that feels as if it had been lifted from the old Grindhouse flicks - I loved it, but sometimes I felt that it was used in the wrong places(as I said). Other tunes have more of a Spanish acoustic flavor. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM RUN BITCH RUN! is a film that takes a cue from the old guilty pleasure Grindhouse exploitation flicks, and the effort is a pretty decent one. Although it does have it's flaws it's a great film to have fun with, one that I could see warranting multiple view. Near the film's end, I was pretty much set on what rating to give to this film, but I have to admit that it's rather explosive ending moved it up a notch. RUN! BITCH RUN! is definitely worth checking out, Actress Cheryl Lyone has a strong showing, and for those interested Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN's Daeg Faerch has a cameo, along with his mother Mickey, as that that angry woman with the shotgun that I mentioned. | ||||
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