Run! Bitch Run! (2009)

Strong and Moving!

As Good As It Gets

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Catherine and Rebecca, two Catholic schoolgirls, travel door to door selling religious items in order to raise money to continue their valuable education. Of course, they approach the wrong place and are attacked by really bad men. After a brutal encounter, the girls are left for dead. Catherine picks herself up and manages to obtain weaponry to seek revenge on the evil doers. This has been done much better before with I Spit on Your Grave or Last House on the Left. Low budget does not mean bad; it is in this case; the acting is horrendous, there is no structure, and the editing must have been done by someone wearing blindfolds. I can appreciate campy, but Run Bitch Run never reaches that level. Writer-director Joseph Guzman should never be allowed anywhere near a camera for the rest of his natural life.

The movie attempts to recreate the rape-revenge genre but really fails. What we get is lots and lots of sleaziness, failed puns and undeveloped characters. Not much light is shed on the lead characters, and all thats shown is pretty much predictable. The movie feels highly derived from 'Kill Bill' with dramatic soundtrack and a mute protagonist, but is nothing of that level. The agony of the victims is not depicted properly and the artists' are to blame for this. The settings & sets are good for the theme but somehow the weak dialogue delivery just blows the movie apart. The final revenge part of the movie is too small in length and you feel it could have been lengthier compared to the first half's sleazy extended run. The extended nudity could have been easily trimmed down and instead used to show some in depth briefing of the character's feelings and turmoils. Ultimately it's a nudity fest with failed everything else.

Two chicks dress up in supposedly sexy outfits and drive an old family car to a redneck suburb to sell bibles that they have stacked in the back. Almost immediately they wind up in a whorehouse, whose habitants (a long haired macho man, a stuttering dork and a crazy latina) proceed to trash the girls' lives. One girl gets out, finds some weapons who knows where, and goes after the bad guys/girls. Run Bitch Run is a piece of modern video trash. It doesn't have a standard, the quality of writing, acting and general film-making is all over the place. Lots of filler material in segments that are supposed to be the most interesting scenes in this sort of a movie. The girl's motivations are never explained, but her crazy face almost sells the idea that if you're left in the woods alone, stripped of your clothes, wandering through the beautiful vistas, you just might go on a spree of all things irrational. One thing that's good about the film is music - it is better than what you'll witness on screen. The makes of this movie probably are aware of that too, since the music almost never stops. Basically, with this particular movie you're getting a porno that substitutes sex with blood and profanity.

Psychotic white trash pimp, Loco Lobo(Peter Tahoe), his stuttering partner, Clint(Johnny Winscher), and scuzzy whore, Marla(Ivet Corvea) decide to toy around with two traveling Catholic school girls selling church merchandise, having the misfortune of seeing the murder of a prostitute stashing coke in her panties. While Rebecca(Christina DeRosa) is shot in the face after a gun goes off during a game of chicken, Marla instigates out of entertainment, Catherine(Cheryl Lyone) is to be sent out into a nearby woods where she must evade capture or else be raped or much worse. Once Lobo catches her and does the dirty deed, robbing her of her virginity despite a valiant fight to deny him such pleasures, Catherine will wreak havoc on them all, everyone of those low life bastards.The influences of I SPIT ON HER GRAVE & LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT are easily recognizable in this sleazy, misogynistic rape revenger. After awakening from a bump on the noggin, Catherine walks a bit through the forest naked before being placed in a hospital. Left emotionally traumatized, Catherine dons a nurse's uniform and executes anyone who crosses her, particularly setting her sights on the scum who caused her such irreparable damage. Packing a shotgun, Catherine is hellbent and dedicated to make them pay. Catherine also uses a machete, scalpel(on a smarmy pimp outside the hospital after her exit), and knife, blazing a trail of bloodshed in her green station wagon, Mother Mary's small statuette on the dashboard, a cold look of determination. Credit to Lyone for going the extra mile in getting her clothes ripped away by Clint, harassed by Marla, and abused by Lobo as he has his way with her(the rape is shot at an angle to reveal nothing). Most of the violence occurs off screen, the film edited carefully due to budget constraints. Tahoe is particularly memorable(he favored Josh Lucas to me for some reason)as the leader of this trio of sadistic misfits. Clint's stuttering gets rather tiresome(as does his sparring with a bartender who is sick of Clint's not paying for his drinks)and Marla's salacious antics become annoying. I found some of the movie rather tedious and wanted more of Lyone in her nurse's uniform. I was also disappointed we get so little of DeRosa as Lyone's traveling companion, kind of a bit precocious and sexy. The sexual assaults aren't as troublesome as I expected them to be(camera placement is key). Probably has one of the most boring lesbian make-out sessions I have seen in recent memory. Corvea really relishes her role as a slutty psycho bitch. Plenty of nudity and profanity, and RUN!BITCH RUN! wallows in unpleasantness which I imagine will be a plus for the exploitation fanbase. Marla has Rebecca suck her toes and forces her into giving the hooker oral sex, which might be one of the more tasteless sequences. Highlight I think has a victim getting a machete stabbed in his ass multiple times..why is this gratifying, the one getting it where it hurts is a root of all that transpires to poor Catherine. While the gore is a bit underwhelming, I did like the knife through the hand gag. Lots of humor aimed toward Christianity. Probably more related to I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE than anything else due to not finishing off the victim when she was at her most vulnerable, allowing her to seek vengeance. Scenes from a nunsploitation flick(Nuns with Big Guns)can be seen in this movie as Clint watches it to get off.