There’s something very troubling about Run Hide Fight that goes beyond writer/director Kyle Rankin’s subject matter. The fact that it’s been distributed in the US by right-wing website The Daily Wire needs to be mentioned. Had the film been about anything else, this probably wouldn’t be an issue, but since it involves a live-streamed school shooting it sends all manner of disturbing flags. That said, the movie itself is not without its merits and problems, and we’ll attempt to keep the politics out of it.
Zoe (Isabelle May) is finding it hard to come to terms with her mother’s death. So much so that she talks to her often and imagines her there responding. It’s caused a rift between her and her father (Thomas Jane) too. She’s become distant (he makes a point of mentioning how odd it is that she’s thrown out her phone) and obviously lacks some compassion (while being trained to hunt by her father, rather than quickly putting a stag out of its misery, she brains it with a rock in a rather upsetting prologue). It’s prank day at school, and her friend Lewis (Olly Sholotan) asks her to the prom, which doesn’t go down too well. While she’s in the restroom, school outcast Tristan (Eli Brown) and his cronies smash into the cafeteria with a van, and begin a hostage/shooting situation that Lewis – being in charge of the school’s Facebook page – is forced to livestream to the world. Once Zoe becomes aware of this she takes it upon herself to get the classes to safety and try to bring down the shooters.
Run Hide Fight (named after the ‘active shooter response’ protocol) plays like a juvenile Die Hard, with Isabel May going all John McClane while her school is under siege. She’s more believable in this element than the surly teenager part of her character, although it’s hard to think she’d have survived so long. In a similar way to Becky (2019), we must suspend disbelief somewhat. Eli Brown, on the other hand, is perfect as the narcissistic oddball who has no real objective in his destructive actions than to get his moment of fame and cause mayhem. There are interesting nuances in his character – it’s possible he could be in a relationship with the brother and sister of his team, Chris (Britton Sear) and Anna (Catherine Davis) – that put him above the stereotype image of the loner looking to get revenge – although Kip (Cyrus Arnold), another of Tristan’s gang is exactly that as he was once humiliated in front of the school.
There’s a problem that arises when watching a film like this. It should be escapism. It should be fantasy. As tragedies like this happen with alarming regularity in the US (just one of the reasons the distribution by The Daily Wire is worrying), it’s hard to distance your thoughts from the reality. Where Heathers took school angst and parodied it, this is all too real.
Cameos by genre legends Barbara Crampton and Treat Williams raise the bar of the production, and the rest of the cast are very convincing. Which makes it all the more realistically terrifying. It’s a film that you can’t say you enjoyed as the subject is so concerning. Technically, it’s a good film, but perhaps not one we need right now.
