Run! Bitch Run! (2009) User Reviews (44)

Not trashy enough.

[innocuous · 3/10 · 19 July 2010]

OK, I understand that this is supposed to be a throwback to the Golden Age of Grindhouse Sleaze, but it follows the recipe a little too well for my tastes. Lots of needless exposition between the few action scenes means that you lose attention (and sympathy) pretty quickly.

And like the grindhouse flicks, there's quite a bit of 'cheating' in the film. The camera always cuts away from the money shots, so you get plenty of shots of someone sticking a gun in someone else's face and then getting blood spattered on them in a reverse shot. It reminds me of something you'd see in "Sorority House Massacre."

And as far as nudity or sex, there's not really that much.

Overall, the discomfort this film might generate is pretty weak. Go see a true exploitation film, like "Hanger," if you want to see this sort of thing done to the extreme.

Not Original Enough to Givea Good RatingTo

[gavin6942 · 3/10 · 12 April 2011]

Two Catholic girls (Cheryl Lyone and Christina Derosa) selling Bibles knock on the wrong door and get brought into a world of drugs, violence and prostitution. Soon, it becomes apparent that they probably will not survive, at least in one piece.

The film opens up with three couples having sex, two people taking bong hits and a john getting murdered. So the first five minutes really sets the tone for the rest of the film.

The word that describes this film is either "nudity" or "exploitation" because it is both of these and nothing more. Within ten minutes, we see a fully nude Catholic girl, some naked nuns, gratuitous nudity on characters who do not even factor into the plot, and more. The nudity pretty much never stops, so if you cannot go five minutes without seeing a breast or a butt cheek, this is probably your film.

This is a low budget picture, with the expected video and sound. The closest to any stars this picture has is the kid from Rob Zombie's "Halloween". The budget is not the big problem, though -- it is the plot. We have about 80% "I Spit on Your Grave" and 20% "Last House on the Left". There is practically nothing original about this film, aside from maybe the use of a plunger for masturbating.

I did like the nurse's outfit a lot, and it turned Cheryl Lyone from average to borderline sexy (though still not my type). The acting as a whole was pretty good, though at times I felt the leader wanted to be Michael Madsen, which only made me want him to be Madsen... but we cannot always get what we want.

If you cannot get enough of "I Spit on Your Grave" and need to see more senseless violence, rape and more topless girls than spring break in my backyard, this is your film. If you are not a fan of low grade knockoffs, this will not be your cup of tea.

Genuine throwback or amateur filth?

[Coventry · 4/10 · 2 May 2010]

Based on the reviews and recommendation of several people around this wonderful website, I promptly purchased "Run! Bitch Run" - for the exaggeratedly high price of $20.00 - because this is supposed to be THE ultimate homage to raunchy 70's grindhouse exploitation cinema. The DVD- cover also proudly refers to titles like "I Spit on your Grave" and "Mrs. 45" and proclaims itself to be the cruelest and most vicious rape/revenge film of the past two decades. Let me just state that if you want to see a really grim and disturbing new rape/revenge film, check out the Argentinean "I'll Never Die Alone". Now that's a truly authentic grindhouse movie that literally catapults you back to the 70's. With "Run! Bitch Run", I can't be sure whether the makers intended to make a tribute to exploitation cinema or they simply translated their own sick and perverted fantasies to film. This is zero-budgeted amateur trash, with a lot of foul-mouthed dialogs and random (unattractive) nudity serving as cheap padding footage, whereas the actual plot could easily have told in twenty minutes. Two catholic schoolgirls, one prudish and one wild chick, are selling door-to-door bibles in a hillbilly region. They accidentally witness a local pimp kill one of his whores, so they're captured and abused. The prudish virgin girl Catherine is brutally raped and humiliated, but she nevertheless escapes and ends up in a nearby hospital. She eventually returns to her assailants, though this time dressed in a nurse's outfit and armed with shotguns instead of holy bibles. The simplicity and illogicalness of "Run! Bitch Run" is almost infuriating and increases the suspicion that the whole film was just improvised on the spot. The characters don't make sense. The stuttering guy, for example, is supposedly a docile geek but then later in the bar he turns into an badass aggressor himself. There isn't a single moment of suspense or even emotion to be found in this film and everything happens so randomly! I nearly didn't care for Cheryl Lyone's character as much as I did for Camille Keaton in "I Spit on your Grave". Besides, the butchered the cool chick way too soon, as I wanted to see more footage of Christina DeRose. She's also a much better actress than Cheryl Lyone and looks better naked. The movie isn't half as shocking or violent as reputed to be, although admittedly it contains one vital scene that will make any man squirm. You'll know it when you see it, yikes!

Better luck next time! Bitch better luck next time!

[asgard-5 · 5/10 · 15 June 2010]

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.

Exploitation of Modern Day

[Poptart_Psycho · 4/10 · 8 November 2015]

Again another poorly rated movie.. but I think some people are missing the plot literally. This is not supposed to be a big horror production or even something unique I think Run Bitch Run is a modern day movie taking it back to the exploitation age of the 70s.

The main is revolved around 2 catholic schoolgirls trying so sell religious books to make money for charity. Rebecca is more flirtatious and loud whilst Catherine is a virginal good girl.

Yes the first 5 minutes of the movie would give any softcore porno a run for the money but it sets the scene.

So the 2 girls are knocking around houses when they encounter the 'whore house'. Before knocking they witness a pimp kill a prostitute and immediately are dragged inside. Of course there are scenes of sexual humiliation throughout like all other rape and revenge films.

When the presume Catherine dead they vile rednecks go back to normal life but obviously she isn't and is out for vile revenge of her captures.

if you want gore, a big production horrors and far fetched stories this isn't for you, but if you want an insight of 70s grindhouse movies this is the one

Watch Something From the 70's Instead

[stitchesaresore · 3/10 · 6 April 2015]

I am a huge fan of horror and exploitation, and low budget b-movies have never been something to scare me off. Rape/Revenge is my favourite subgenre (probably because seeing the brutal revenge is almost cathartic to me, a fantasy I'll never actually enact). So when I heard Run! Bitch Run! was a modern throwback to the 70's grindhouse trash, I immediately knew I had to see this film.

The story is pretty much what you'd expect: two Catholic school girls are going door-to-door selling bibles. They knock on the wrong door and witness a pimp killing one of his girls. They become captive to the pimp and two others. After one girl dies and the other is left for dead, the surviving girl sets out for revenge.

The script, while basic, could have worked with better acting and a soundtrack that didn't sound like it was from a horrible porno. If you're watching for tits, they're on display quite frequently, but you'd be better served picking up a Playboy. Our heroine, Catherine, has a pretty nice pair and once she's naked after the rape (and later wearing a nurses' uniform), she becomes acceptably pleasant to the eye.

I cannot stress enough how poor the acting was, though. What a relief that Catherine doesn't speak throughout the entire second act. One star was added to this review for the way she gets her revenge on Lobo (the pimp). The knifing is the sole reason to watch this film. Try it with the mute on.

It seems to be Much More Interesting than it Actually is...

[petailss · 1/10 · 8 November 2011]

Begins to show nothing more than sex and breasts. Script that comes down to rape and revenge. More rape than anything else. Totally unnecessary scenes and characters appear only to increase the duration. After the "death" of the future avenger, scenes pass slowly, showing the lack of creativity of writers who spend about three minutes showing the naked girl walking from one side to another until hitting the road. The only thing that is worth a little, is the soundtrack. One of the songs in the film seems to be a plagiarism from the soundtrack of the movie Planet Horror, mixed with Molly's Chamber by Kings of Leon. Long-awaited revenge is low in creativity and nothing good, as seen in revenge I Spit On Your Grave. The result is disappointing and we see the end credits, and a question comes to mind: "That's it?!", along with the sense wasted of time. They can try, but I have not seen a gore/trash better than those made by Rodriguez and Tarantino.

The trailer is all you'll need to see

[rwagn · 1/10 · 10 July 2010]

This film is a putrid attempt to remake a drive-in trash film from the '70's but you know all that from the other reviews. I like a good tribute to trash and this is not it. If you feel you must see this then I advise that you watch the 3 minute trailer. It contains all the bloodletting and nudity you'll need to see. Plus it makes the film seem that much more intense and interesting than it really is. Pathetic acting ALL THE WAY AROUND make this a true time waster. If you get your kicks looking at Playboy level sweater meat then by all means, have at it. There are boobs a plenty on display but, with one exception, they are attached to some damned ugly women! Save your time and money and frustration level and SKIP THIS. It's so bad I didn't even keep a copy for myself and I copied "Crazy Fat Ethel (pt.2)" for Chrissakes!!

A not bad throwback grind house revenge flick with heart

[Corpus_Vile · 6/10 · 19 December 2009]

Some Spoilers may follow

Catherine and Rebecca are two Catholic schoolgirls, whose day takes a severe turn for the worst when they knock into the wrong home while selling bibles door to door. Running afoul of depraved pimp Lobo and his equally vicious gang, Catherine and Rebecca are defiled and Catherine is left to die. Catherine vows revenge, and resolves to make the scumbags pay for their deeds....

Run Bitch Run from the trailer looks almost like a Black Dynamite style parody of exploitation flicks, yet the film itself is actually a heartfelt homage to the genre. It's not nearly as tongue in cheek as one would think from viewing the trailer, and has some dead straight nasty scenes, including one iconic scene that will do for guys in the 00's what I Spit On Your Grave did for guys back in the '70s.

Although it suffers from a rather meandering middle and randomness,(Possibly due to budgetary constraints) it's overall a solid and entertaining enough homage to grind house trash cinema, and director Joseph Guzman is obviously an exploitation fan as he has a great eye and the film has a pretty kick ass feel for the era.

Overall, it's flawed in parts, and its biggest flaw is that it's actually rather restrained violence-wise, but it's still an enjoyable contemporary exploitation flick, and worth checking out overall for fans of the genre.

It's got a cool score and all so overall, grindhouse fans could do worse.

The movie we never needed...

[destroyerwod · 4/10 · 7 February 2015]

The synopsis caught my eyes and i was able to find this movie. I was expecting something like I spit on your Grave or Last House on the left. To be totally honest i never saw the originals and only the remakes. Yet this movie was made in the 2000s, so well...

Turned out to be a very amateurish movie in every sense of the term. The movie got this "high school project" vibe as the camera, directing and everything look pretty amateur, and the main actress acting... holy cow...

Seriously i couldn't get involved in anything that was happening. As she is getting rape she looks bored to death and i dunno, she just ain't believable at all. The other girl that get murdered at the beginning seem way more genuine in her acting.

The movie also got a fair share of nudity and the girls are not unpleasant to the eyes, but when this is your movie highlight, there is definitely a problem.

If you watch a movie like that, you want the girl to get her revenge, to make them pay, here i didn't had any feeling what so ever. The characters are just too cartoonish and well, if i would be Jeremy Jahn i would give it "Not remember it in T-minus 15 minutes, yet already forgot" ratings, barely escaping his worst rating that i can't type here cause it got prohibited words it seem...

I will give it a 4 and give it the benefit of the doubt because it seem to know its place, and its after all indeed an amateur movie... and well that machete to the ass was actually original...

But unless the genre really appeal to you, you can skip this one.

Not that bad.

[shadow-231-51566 · 9/10 · 5 December 2011]

If you rent or buy a film called Run Bitch Run, then you know what your getting into. It's true to the title and that's what is important. This would make a good triple bill with Street Trash and Dear God No!

Yeah, it's cheap but isn't that the point? Much better than 99% of the crap Hollywood makes. I can't believe how many people are complaining about this movie. Just order a pay-per-view CGI spectacle and let the rest of us enjoy our trash already.

Grab some booze and popcorn and enjoy it for what it is. If you want art go to a museum.

See it.

One of the best exploitation horror films i have seen!!

[MovieGuy01 · 7/10 · 11 February 2010]

I watched Run! Bitch Run! last night and i found it to be one of the best exploitation horror film i have ever seen. It is about two innocent teenage catholic schoolgirls, who are trying to sell religious books from door to door to try and pay for there education. But things start to go very wrong when they arrive in a certain neighbourhood and happen to knock on the wrong door. The two schoolgirls are confronted by en evil woman called Marth and a psychotic man called Clint. One of the girls Rebecca is raped and is left for dead. But the other girl Catherine happens to awake, and she wants revenge. I found this to be a disturbing film at times, because of the sexual violence in it. and some of the sex sences were also disturbing. It reminded me of some of the horror films from the 1970's such as I Spit On Your Grave, and The Last House On The Left i would recommend this film to people who enjoy exploitation films. 7/10

A big big let down

[grindhouse74 · 3/10 · 26 December 2009]

Let me first tell you that i love exploitation movies and over the past 10 years some directors have tried to capture the spirit of the nasty exploitation movies of the 70's, the one that captured that spirit was Rob Zombie's "The Devils Rejects" it was well directed, edited, and at least the actors gave a damn about there performance, now a lot of Grindhouse movies in the 70's was badly acted but thats no excuse now, the big problem with Run Bitch Run is the student like direction there is no flair with the direction, it's just plain flat and the editing is very bad, don't get me wrong i really wanted to love this movie (the trailer looked fun) but it was bad, and not even in a good way.. I know there were working in a very low budget but it looks like the film-makers did not even try, it was just lazy work..

Now the story is pretty much the same as I Spit On Your Grave, just a standard rape and revenge that you have seen many times, but what really sucked about the movie was the violence, it was not brutal or disturbing enough, now let me tell you, forget about some of the good reviews that this movie has been getting, it's all lies lies lies, what you really want to see is some hard hitting bloody violence some sleazy sex and this does not deliver..The only good thing about the film is the nudity...Trust me, the trailer is much much better than the whole movie...in other words avoid...

Run! Bitch Run! (2009)

[SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain · 2/10 · 13 December 2011]

Exploitation to the utter extreme. I like my rape revenge flicks to be serious. That may just be me. Exploitation is fine, but this film lacks any form of enjoyability. All it contains is a series of rapes and then murders. It's so poorly shot, that it's obvious all the thought went into assaulting the audience. The film didn't so much offend me, which would have been a good thing, so much as it just made me feel dirty. Not because of all the raping and killing, but because I just knew this film had nothing to say. On the plus side, it did have some fantastically bad one liners which made me laugh. These hinted towards a movie that could have been a dark comedy.

Peter Tahoe at his worst

[protocef · 1/10 · 20 February 2010]

After watching Run! Bitch Run! I felt compelled to ponder the direction of the indie film industry. Those that have wrote such positive reviews about it confuse me. First off it was a lot of unnecessary nudity, however it does not detract from the film, however what does is all of these girls are physically unappealing and actually make you want to turn away from the screen. Secondly the amount of cheesy dialogue and pointless shots is obscene, a movie that should have been maybe 30 minutes was stretched out with montage sequences of the main character. Finally the acting seemed unenthusiastic and at times you felt like the actors were not being paid enough to read their lines. I do not see the point of the movie, it would seem that they thought they could sell it to the softcore porn crowd, however failed miserably in casting. I give it 1 star as 0 is not an option.

Slow paced and fairly dull...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 4 February 2016]

For a revenge movie then this 2009 movie was nowhere near as interesting, thrilling or disturbing as other movies of the same genre, for example "I Spit on Your Grave".

The idea of the movie, the storyline if you will, is very simple and straight forward, as they usually tend to be for these particular types of movies. The storyline, simply put, is about two Catholic school girls find themselves at the mercy of three maniacs when they knock on their door during their trip to sell bibles.

It is no secret that we don't watch these movies for their elaborate storyline. Hardly so. No, we watch these movies for the violence and to see what kind of wicked ways the movie makers come up with for torturing people on the screen and what nasty ways people are killed by those wronged in the movie. Yes, the revenge genre is a particularly nasty genre by comparison to most other genres.

And you find yourself watching these movies because you enjoy the genre, most likely not because you stumble upon them by sheer random luck.

What ultimately killed off this movie for me, pardon the pun, was the slow pace that it trotted on at, and the lack of convincing acting performances by the majority of the cast (which wasn't many, mind you, as there were few people in the movie). Had there been more talented people in the movie, it would have been all the more enjoyable.

Don't get me all wrong here, because there were also nice aspects to the movie, they were just overshadowed by the less than mediocre stuff. And that was a shame, because it dragged the movie down.

There are far better movies available in this particular genre. And I can honestly say that now as I have seen the movie, I am not going to revisit it ever again.

Grindhouse fare

[lastliberal · 4/10 · 26 June 2010]

I knew I had seen Cheryl Lyone before. She was dancing in two episodes of "True Blood." She was perfectly cast to play a virginal Catholic schoolgirl who is raped and left for dead.

Catherine (Lyone) and her schoolmate Rebecca (Christina DeRosa) are selling bibles door to door when they stumble upon a murder. While Lobo (Peter Tahoe) and Clint (Johnny Winscher) are disposing of the body, Marla (Ivet Corvea) manages to kill Rebecca playing Russian Roulette. They then take the body to bury and play a game with Catherine which results in her rape.

In typical Grindhouse revenge fashion, she comes back to get her due.

The film features a whole lot of full frontal and sex. It also has a nunsploitation angle as Clint spends his time watching nunsploitation porn.

Directed by first time director Joseph Guzman, it just makes you look forward to his next feature, which also features Corvea, Nude Nuns with Big Guns.

Very low budget sexploitation

[TdSmth5 · 5/10 · 22 February 2016]

In the intro we meet a bunch of creeps in what is described as a whorehouse. Although they don't think twice about killing the customers.

Two girls from a Christian school travel around selling bibles door to door. They're not doing well and even get robbed by a little kid. When they stop at the whorehouse you just know things are going to get ugly. Sure enough, the two girls are grabbed, one of them is raped and dies when she's forced to play Russian roulette. The other one is taken to the woods where she's given a chance to escape, but the main bad guy catches up with her and rapes her. She's then is offered to a secondary bad guy to be raped and killed. However, she manages to escape when he has second thoughts upon seeing her crucifix, not before beating her a little.

She ends up running around the woods naked till she ends up on a road and collapses. She's brought to a hospital where the doctor makes it sound like she's on the verge of death for reasons unknown. Not so fast...a few moments later she wakes up, grabs a nurse's uniform, finds her car, and drives back the the whorehouse to take brutal revenge.

The story had been told many times before. What does Run! Bitch Run! offer? Not much really. It's low budget, so it doesn't look polished. Audio is even worse, no, it's downright terrible. Except for the music, which sounds good and it's pretty much constant and loud. Too bad they didn't pay as much attention to the actors voices. There are actually some neat tunes among the non-stop music, which is similar to the stuff Tarantino uses. I'm not even sure what genre it is. The principal cast does a good job acting, especially Peter Tahoe and Ivet Corvea. Some of the secondary cast don't seem to be actors at all. There's some violence, some nudity. The female cast is somewhat attractive, in particular Christina DeRosa whose character unfortunately only gets only little screen time. Writer/director Guzman likes his sexploitation pretty crude and this movie captures the spirit but doesn't quite deliver enough violence or nudity, or quality audio. Compared to other movies, what the main character goes through, isn't THAT bad. But then again, for the budget, this movie turned out pretty well. It's with Nude Nuns with Big Guns that this crew get's a better chance to show what it can do.

revenge flick in exploitation style

[trashgang · 6/10 · 23 December 2009]

What I Spit On Your Grave was for the seventies, and MS 45 for the eighties Run Bitch Run will be THE revenge movie for the, how do we call it, the first decennial of the new millennium. This is a pure revenge movie I can tell you that. so you know what that means, girls got raped, girl survive girl starts killing. Mostly the killings are done off camera so no gore galore in this flick, but that doesn't matter. It's weird enough. Were in I Spit a scene was cut in the bathroom, you geeks surely know what I mean, because it wasn't boy friendly we also have a scene here were guys will think, ooowie my ass. The only problem I had was the fact that after 45 minutes the movie slows down a bit. The scene at the bar takes a bit too long. But the acting is believable, they all have been type casted. The fact that playboygirl Christina DeRosa goes naked makes it a movie for the guys, in fact, there is a lot of frontal nudity. And included as extra on the DVD is the movie that the guy is watching at home, again, full frontal nudity. But also have a look at those faces, the bad girl, what a face, perfect casting. And the face of Cheryl Leone, man, isn't that a seventies face or what. The score is perfect too and the colors are washed too to make it a drive in flick. Be sure to watch it, it's a trip down memory lane.

Incompetent

[onenil2 · 1/10 · 25 July 2018]

Basically "I Spit On Your Grave" but made by brain-damaged monkeys. I don't think the cinematographer had ever SEEN a camera before this, much less operated one. The editor doesn't understand basic film editing concepts. And the music (while technically competent) is horribly mixed and utterly inappropriate for the contexts in which it is used.

Wholesome family entertainment

[zhivago97 · 10/10 · 27 December 2022]

Intellectual story of two you ladies and their happy-go-lucky travels selling Bibles to uneducated non-believers. Even though they are inexperienced at sales, these wholesome girls learn all the right techniques to make their sales skyrocket! In the end, they earn all the money they need to return to St Mary's girls' school so they can live happily ever after.

I can't figure out why nobody wears underwear in this movie. And the women are always walking around topless. It's probably because of the summer heat in southern California where it is very dry and dusty.

The house lady madam even has to use an old toilet plunger on herself to get unclogged because of all the dust that has collected, apparently causing extreme constipation. She could use eX-lax for relief but I think she ran out of money after spending it on Bibles. In any event, it's a very educational movie showing alternative lifestyles, including how people use their creativity to hide small bags of powder when they don't have pockets (or undergarments). Who knew!

Overall it's a joyful and uplifting look about life skills and life lessons. Sometimes hearts get broken or worse, splattered, but that is part of growing up these girls learn. They must have had Divine's inspiration to be in the right place, at the right time, selling exactly what this small community needs - Bibles! And now this community is much better off. Even John Waters would approve.

If you want some religious oriented entertainment to watch with your family, this movie is highly recommended. Kids, parents and even grandparents can all find something to relate to. And even if you don't read the Bible, this movie may give you inspiration to start giving back to your community just like these girls did. They are honest to goodness role models in every sense of the term.

Depraved

[jfgibson73 · 6/10 · 19 July 2010]

This is a low budget piece of trash that was made as a throwback to the sleazy drive in movies of the 70's. It isn't big on story--the plot is pretty simple. What it does very well, however, is recreate the feel of those cheap, scuzzy exploitation films. It has atmosphere to spare.

Two girls are going door to door to sell Catholic supplies to raise money for their school. They knock on the wrong door and become captives of a depraved group of fiends. Sound familiar? The first half of this movie is the same as the first half of Last Door On The Left, and the second half is like the second part of I Spit On Your Grave. So why is this worth seeing? Why not just watch the originals? For me, the best reason was the soundtrack. The songs are good enough to stand alone, but really add to the mood when played in context. Also, I liked how scuzzy the kidnappers were. In every scene they're shown, they're doing sick, depraved things. It's just "over the top" enough to keep things interesting. The girl who plays Marla is especially scuzzy--she goes after anything that moves, and has no regard for life, even her own.

I would recommend this for anyone who likes low budget exploitation films and who has an idea what to expect from the genre. Folks looking for a tight script or inspired performances needn't bother.

Where is "zero" rating ?

[icedflame1990 · 1/10 · 3 May 2010]

Until now , i knew that there are Movies , low budget movies and B movies. Now i suppose we have to welcome " C movies ". I cant even thing of something that was actually good or just average on this film. Everything was a complete disaster. The plot was simple and poor, the acting was like they hired 10 random guys who are not actors and actresses and the made this happen. I wonder what were they thinking while they were making this movie. Is the director happy with the result ? The only good thing in this movie is Cheryl Lyone and i'm not talking about her acting..... Finally , i don't understand how did this get 4.5 /10 . The rating should be 1 .

Coming up with a cool title is the easy part.

[BA_Harrison · 4/10 · 15 July 2010]

The Last House on the Left meets Ms. 45 in this tawdry tale of murder, rape and revenge that sees Catholic schoolgirls Rebecca and Catherine (Christina DeRosa and Cheryl Lyone) witness the murder of a hooker by local pimp Lobo (Peter Tahoe). Taken captive by the killer and his skeezy low-life gang, the girls are subjected to a harrowing ordeal of physical abuse, before Catherine is shot in the head, and Lyone is raped and left for dead in the woods.

Waking in hospital, having been found wandering naked and delirious by a passerby, Lyone hops out of bed, borrows a tight fitting nurse's outfit, grabs herself a shotgun, and goes looking for revenge.

'Run! Bitch Run!' is a frustrating exercise in exploitation pastiche from first time director Joseph Guzman, a man so focused on scoring 'cool points' by taking his sensationalist content to the nth degree that he completely disregards realism, pacing, and originality in the process; as Quentin Tarantino has clearly illustrated with his last few films, achieving that authentic grind-house feel is a lot harder than one might imagine, and it takes a lot more than regurgitating themes pilfered from the classics and overwhelming your audience with excess to succeed.

I guess that Guzman's heart is in the right place, but his misguided attempt at 'out-sleazing' his contemporaries seriously backfires, turning his intended tribute into something closely resembling a parody. Despite (un)healthy doses of sex and violence, a suitably grainy look, and an undeniably cool (but rather over-used) soundtrack, 'Run! Bitch Run!' never ever feels like the 'Real McCoy', but rather comes across as a cartoonish mockery of all that we enjoy about the genre.

Another big problem is the imbalance of the whole project, with plenty of the film devoted to non-essential scenes that do nothing to propel the narrative forward, but not nearly enough time spared for the retribution aspect of the story, which for me is the most satisfying part of any rape/revenger. After much build up, the vengeance is short, but not all that sweet, with very little in the way of truly disturbing violence (more gore please!) and only chief bad-guy Lobo getting anything like the nasty treatment he deserves—a machete repeatedly shoved up his ass!

Guzman's next project is the niftily monickered 'Nude Nuns with Big Guns', but the director should be warned—coming up with a cool title is the easy part...

Just Plain Bad

[billcr12 · 2/10 · 4 June 2012]

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.