Joseph Guzman is the director of Run Bitch Run, the film which he co-wrote with Robert James Hayes II. Guzman’s film is an homage of sorts to the grindhouse cinema, rape, and revenge films from the 70s. Like the films that inspired it, Run Bitch Run is an ultra low-budget independent film that is full of violence and shockingly brutal imagery.
The film is produced by Freak Show Entertainment, the company that left musically branded entertainment industry standards with their film “Good Volume One.” Freak Show is famous for their low-grade, scantily clad B and C list actors exploitation films. Run Bitch Run intends to target the ‘so bad it’s good’ appeal of movies like I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House On The Left, which focus on rape and revenge violence.
The film’s budget is fairly small, about $25,000. It was shown for the first time at underground movie festivals, and it was later screened in the US and Japan, but it was mostly accessible through DVD and streaming.
Plot Summary
The story centers on Catherine and Rebecca, two well-meaning and innocent Catholic schoolgirls. They go from house to house in small town America selling religious books and materials in an effort to pay for their private schooling. On one such errand, they accidentally walk into the wrong neighborhood and come across a sadistic pimp and drug dealer leading a gang of violent criminals.
This chance encounter leads to whirlwind horror. The girls are gang captured after witnessing a murder. A sequence of brutal events usually classified under sadistic torture and depravity cinema follows. Rebecca is killed and Catherine is tortured by violent sexual assault. The gruesome portrayal of rape and violence is intense and shocking, revealing the film’s intent to stir the visceral, untamed pain linked to the need for vengeance in cinema.
Catherine ultimately breaks bloodied and bruised, but alive, from the captivity. Several moments later, she gets back her vengeance disguised as a nurse wielding a shotgun. The mission is to seek out all the animalistic filth and take out for the pain they caused her and their brutal butchery for her innocent friend. One by one, she tracks down each and starts enacting unapologetic, unapologetic blood-soaked vengeance dressed in plot-reducing violence.
Main Cast and Cast Overview
Cheryl Lyone portrays Catherine, the woman at the center of the story. Her role is the impossible woman archetype who shifts from innocent to avenger, a central transformation common to rape-revenge narratives. Lyone portrays the character psychically and emotionally, depicting the character’s deep change in a very real and visceral way.
Corvea Ivet is Marla, who appears is a minor yet impactful role.
Peter Tahoe as Lobo is the main antagonist of the film. He portrays the character in a very exaggerated, grotesque manner, which is consistent with the film’s grindhouse style.
Catherine’s the victim of crimes by a thug named Clint, dressed by Johnny Winscher.
Completing the portrayal of the small town community and the criminal underworld in the film are Daeg Faerch, Christina DeRosa, and others.
Direction and Set Design
Joseph Guzman, the director, intends to give the film the look and feel of 1970’s exploitation cinema. The film’s 1970s look is achieved with grainy footage, handheld camerawork, and low-budget set pieces, which all lean toward a vintage, raw style. The long takes, sharp zooms, and the subdued colors are all quite rough and seek to imitate the grindhouse feel.
The film employs scenes that are chaotic, unkempt, and aggressive. Specifically during the film’s violent sequences, the lighting is unyielding, sharp, and natural. The aim is to create discomfort, and to ensnare the viewer in the same emotional and psychological space as the characters.
The film’s atmosphere is filled with shadiness and discomfort, exclusively enhanced by the retro-inspired tracks that incorporate psychedelia rock, soul, and synth. In spite of the current setting, the music reaffirms the time-warp tone of the film, reinforcing the placed ambiance.
Themes and Genre Elements
The film Run! Bitch Run! contains elements of rape and revenge, thus marking it forth in the sub-genre. Following the same formula of many of its predecessors, the film carries the same emotional invokes of story structure histeria. Though simple, the approach can be predictable, and can be used to explore deeper themes, including of trauma, justice, and personal agency.
Catherine’s alteration from victim to avenger is the film’s emotional spine, as it portrays the acts of revenge and empowerment. Forth and back to the frame, as she returns donning a medical outfit with a weapon, it’s a statement of both healing and retribution, serving in the eye of the viewer as a gruesome yet graceful symbol.
Lastly, the movies overt showcase and manifestation of violence is both deliberate and boundary pushing. Although, the extreme is never the intention, rather the whole derives from the essence of taboo and confront violence in a freely expressed manner.
Moral Ambiguity – Catherine is the main focal point, but the audience grappling with her brutal acts of vengeance certainly blurs the lines of sympathy. Is vengeance a form of justice served, or is it simply another act of senseless violence?
Exploitation Aesthetics – Everything, including the title and the branding, steers into the sensational violence stereotyped in grindhouse cinema. This film has one distinct purpose, and that is to provoke, entertain, disturb, and push boundaries.
Reception and Controversy
RUN BITCH RUN remains a divisive title. To some horror fans and devotees of grindhouse cinema, the film is a well-crafted homage to a nearly forgotten era of cinema, and they have championed it for that reason. Reception of the film was largely based off its adherence to the form and, visual language of exploitation films, alongside its unapologetic approach.
As with many films of this nature, Run Bitch Run generates extreme love or hatred. Many viewers, grinds, and critics considered the film very uncomfortable to sit through. The film was panned for:
- Weak acting and character performance
- Low cinematographic value
- Overuse of sexual
- Overuse of sexual violence and to a certain degree, extreme violence.
As a result, critics and viewers alike gave the film a wide array of scores averaging a two-star review, with top and bottom scores featuring extreme positive or negative comments ranging from love to being “trash cinema.”
While most films tend to target wide audiences in the case of Run Bitch Run, it appears to have found a niche in extreme, horror, and underground filmmakers. Looking at it from a historical standpoint, the film is an extreme and successful modern addition to the long-standing tradition of provocative films.
Conclusion
Whether it’s to garner debate, or cheap entertainment, Run Bitch Run is pretty much a film built for a very niche audience. It is packed with themes of violence, retribution, and a hollow story featuring shallow characters. In the end, it fits the bill for exploitation and grind-house films, and manages to shock the viewer.
The film serves as a love letter to the low-budget horror films of the past. For those who are not interested or do not know the niche of exploitation cinema, this film may be too much of a shock or too provocative. But for fans of the genre, it is a raw and unapologetic return to the spirit of underground filmmaking.
In the end, Run! Bitch Run! serves as both an homage and a challenge, a challenge to the audience’s sense of justice and what is acceptable to film. The movie offers a harsh, yet unrelenting, depiction of vengeance and empowerment through survival.
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