Movie Review: Run! Bitch Run! (2009)

An intriguing title, no? Run! Bitch Run! is a somewhat strange but at the same time somewhat delightful throwback to 70s exploitation cinema, more specifically the rape-revenge subgenre. In fact, upon watching the first few minutes of the movie, I was pretty much convinced that it was from the 70s despite knowing it's 2009 release date. The music, the skeazy acting, even most of the shot compositions are very reminiscent of films from that era which is one thing at which this movie succeeds.

Bow-chicka-wow-wow plot: Two schoolgirls are selling Bibles in a crappy town called Moseley when they happen upon a drug dealer's house. They witness the murder of one of the dealer's whores, and the dealer and two others decide to have their fun with the girls before disposing of them. One survives and soon heads back to Moseley to get revenge on all of them.

This movie is sleazy. Sleaze galore. It looks like they took a big ole can of EZ-Sleaze and with gusto spread it all over this cracker of a plot. There is a sex scene pretty much every five or so minutes and almost all of the females to appear in the film at one point show their tits. I guess that's par for the course in a movie like this and more than adds to the exploitative nature. The only place the film really lacks is actually in the violence which is not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. 

So there's some characters to get straight here. The movie starts off in the crack den where we have the dealer, Lobo, and two of his whores, Marla - a coke fiend lesbian - and Carla. Then there's Clint who is the slow, stuttering lackey to Lobo. He likes watching this nun-lesbian porno movie. Cut to the girls. They are young, pretty Catholic school girls. Catherine is the steadfast rule follower and virgin, Rebecca is the one with the bad side who wants to have fun. 

The girls show up to the drug dealer's house to sell some religious junk, see Carla get shot in the head by Lobo for stealing his cocaine, and are then apprehended by the deadbeats for some torture and rape. After a wicked uncomfortable forced lesbianism scene between Carla and Rebecca, Rebecca is shot while playing Russian roulette. Catherine is taken into the woods for some unexplained reason by Lobo, Clint, and Carla where she is told to literally, "Run! Bitch, run!" before Lobo catches up to her and rapes her. Clint, the idiot, is then told to kill her, which he doesn't of course because he's an idiot. Catherine gets taken to a hospital where she dons a nurse's uniform before getting all pumped up for her revenge. 

Have you noticed the similarities to other famous exploitation movies yet? The Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave... references and almost blatant theft is rampant in Run! Bitch Run!, but at the same time, it still manages to keep its own kind of sleaze and revel in it, which is most enjoyable to watch. Clint is the same character as Matthew from I Spit on Your Grave, acting the same way and told to do the exact same thing and failing at it. The other references are easy to spot, as well.

The revenge scenes are relatively tame until you get to the final murder of Lobo. Catherine barges in after killing Marla on Lobo having sex with presumably another one of bimbos or whores. Catherine's got a machete and she just shoves it right up Lobo's ass. No joke. A machete up the butt. Several times. She basically anally rapes him with a MACHETE. That's hardcore, and a nicely satisfying way for this piece of crap drug dealer and rapist to die.

There are also some oddly thrown in scenes involving Carla and her girlfriend and an way too drawn scene where Clint goes to a skeazy (more skeaze!) and gets bitched at by both the stripper and the bar owner. But these scenes don't detract too much from overall story, just add more sex and boobs and unnecessary violence. 

The ending is a bit of a downer. Not gonna lie, I didn't expect that and I was quite shocked. It's much different than the usual "girls rule" ending that other films like this have but I think it's a nice turn. Makes you think about what you've just seen in a different way.

If trash and sleaze is your thing, Run! Bitch Run! doesn't disappoint. Watch it for the fun of watching it, and also watch people look at you with surprise and a bit of interest when you tell them you just watched a movie called Run! Bitch Run!.

Sidenote: The grammar bitch in me must comment on the punctuation of the title. What exactly is a "bitch run"? Because that's what the title is implying. If they were going for an imperative verb, it should have read more like "Run, Bitch, Run!" or "Run! Bitch, Run!". Without the comma, it just bothers me. I know I'm dorking out, but I can't help it. Sorry!