Run

When you think wheelchairs and horror, maybe you’d consider the cobweb-ridden mobility device in The Changeling attic. But for most people, it’s probably the ill-fated wheelchair-confined gents, Franklin from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or the arse over teakettle Mark from Friday the 13th Part II.

Either way, perhaps not the best depiction of the disabled you’ll ever see. But perhaps those characters, er walked…so that Run could…well…Run.

This one puts a disabled character with moral and physical agency front and centre, a la home invasion thriller Hush, which did so with a deaf/mute woman menaced in a remote home.

But unlike that one’s more conventional set up, Run takes things in a different direction entirely, examining the relationship between a smothering mother and her college and wheelchair-bound daughter.

At first, the duo, mom Diane and daughter Chloe, seems to get on splendidly. Mom helps out with everyday tasks, her medicine regimen, homework, etc. It’s domestic bliss in the rustic Pacific Northwest.

Then, Chloe suspects one of her prescription meds isn’t what it seems and becomes determined to get to the bottom of it.

This sets in motion a startling turn of events and eventually a cat-and-mouse affair that is more De Palma thriller than straight up horror, involving first responders and the US Postal Service.

Whatever you want to call it, Run’s pacing and setting are constricting/claustrophobic, the performances top-shelf. And there’s a really good sense of paranoia developed early on.

***1/4 (out of 5)

Check out the Really Awful Movies Podcast discussion of Run.