Run Sweetheart Run is a 2020 American action horror film about a young woman trying to get home alive after her blind date turns violent.
Written and directed by Shana Feste.
The Automatik Entertainment-Blumhouse Productions-Quiet Girl Productions movie stars Ella Balinska, Clark Gregg, Pilou Asbæk and Shohreh Aghdashloo.
The plot was apparently inspired by a real-life incident that happened to writer/director Shana Feste in her early 20s. According to her, she went on a date with a man “who looked incredible on paper, but it went bad very quickly, and I think at, like, one in the morning, I ended up running out of his house in the Hollywood Hills.”
She added: “That night was terrifying and illuminating. People that I didn’t think were going to help me did help me, and the people I thought were going to help me didn’t really help me so much as they could have. It was almost — what happened on foot, going back to my house — worse than what happened on the date.”
Furthermore, she describes her new movie as a “social horror film” and the “equivalent of Get Out for women.”
Reviews [May contain spoilers]:
“Where the film ends up running into problems is during its final act, which feels a bit ham-fisted at times, and also a bit too busy and non-sensical, especially in comparison to all that precedes it. It’s truly a shame, because I was 110 percent on board with everything else in Run Sweetheart Run up until that point…” Daily Dead
“Weirdly, Blumhouse seems determined to sow distrust and discord among men and women, when date nights must be the core of their business. Regardless, RSR survives and overcomes its ideological baggage. It’s a tense, wild ride, with a crowd-pleasing dog, so what more could you ask for? Highly recommended for horror fans…” J.B. Spins
“The message gets so muddled for so long that when it comes back big and strong by the third act, it feels forced. It hurts to say that the intention of adding a #MeToo message made this supernatural horror’s narrative incohesive. Nonetheless, Run Sweetheart Run is a fun and well-paced horror that makes for good fun despite its ambitions being far beyond reach.” Rendy Reviews
” …Run Sweetheart Run balances on-the-nose ideas with some mid-grade horror action as Cherie starts to fight back. By its end, Run Sweetheart Run becomes cloying with its message. Instead of ending on a triumphant note, the story’s obviousness collapses in on itself. ” RogerEbert.com
“Subtlety and nuance aren’t in Feste’s toolset, at least where Run Sweetheart Run is concerned, but that’s only a problem if you prefer your horror with more, not less, subtlety or nuance. For everyone else, Run Sweetheart Run delivers what the genre can and often does best: visceral thrills and real-world commentary.” Screen Anarchy
“This story confronts toxic masculinity head-on like an atomic bomb full of social and political horror. There is a not-so-subtle, chilling commentary about people of color, particularly when it comes to minority women who are assaulted. It’s repeated that “nobody cares” about women like Cherie because people like her don’t matter when they go missing…” Screen Zealots
YouTube reviews:
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Release:
Run Sweetheart Run premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27th 2020 and was due to have a theatrical release on May 8th 2020, however, the lockdown meant that this did not happen. The film will now be released on Amazon Prime on October 28, 2022.
Technical details:
1 hour 38 minutes
