Run! Bitch Run!

Unnecessary homage.

It's no secret the exploitation genre is a collection of great ideas reworked over and over, and it's for that reason we don't usually review exploitation films from decades later than the 90's, where the last bullets of the genre were shot.Today's entry is the directorial debut of Joseph Guzman, a man who is better known for his second film Nude Nuns With Big Guns which we reviewed some years ago. 

 

Run! Bitch Run! is an attempt to bring back the rape & revenge sub genre which is perhaps the most gruesome film style you can watch even today. In the 70's things were a lot looser in censorship, and creativity, specially in the sexploitation field, was obsessed with displaying the most violent & sleazy side of mankind. The gore genre is nothing compared to movies like I Spit On Your Grave, The Last House On The Left, Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Ms. 45 and a long list of flicks considered as cult items today. Fortunately, for the untrained eye, Run! Bitch Run! it's a lot lighter than some of the previously mentioned films, and it's nowhere near the quality and originality the earlier had. 

 

Good ol' chatolic girls.

Good 0l' pervs.

Speaking of homage, Guzman is neither Quentin Tarantino, nor Robert Rodriguez, so instead of delivering an hour and half of pure tribute vibes, we get the exact opposite: a film that seems forced all the time. Even the great funky guitars from the music score sound as if they were pushed way too far to make us believe this wasn't a 2009 film, but one from the 70's. The whole overall feeling you get from watching this film is that making a B-movie/exploitation film isn't as easy as people usually think, and Guzman cleary took everything for granted when filming this forgettable homage attempt.

 

Anyway, let's set critics aside (remember, you watch it, you decide whether it's good or bad, our opinion is just that, a mere opinion in a world of Mrs know it all) and let's get down to business.

Catholic & loaded!

Get a load of this!

So, Run! Bitch Run! is about two Catholic girls (Cheryl Lyone as Catherine, and Christina Derosa as Rebecca) that sell Bibles  for a living. Predictably enough, they 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 fucking, two people taking bong hits and a murder scene. So the first five minutes really set the overall 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, and considering this is a sexploitation flick where nudity & sex are supposed to play a key role in the plot, this simply doesn't happen. Everything is gratuitous and just because. Disappointing, cause this can mislead exploitation newcomers into thinking this is what this genre is all about, but believe you me, there's more than meets the eye!

 

A very christian girl.

 

Is that cum on her face?

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" (without the graphic content that made this film so disgustingly famous) 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.

The acting is below average as expected in the genre. Every actress with starring roles here, never worked in the film industry again and maybe the only thing that made this film known to a certain extent, it's the good publicity it had promising a return to the daring filming of the 70's. 

Poor little girl...

...helpless in the woods.

What makes this film a total meh, is the fact that the revenge sub plot is so brief, that you don't really care about what's happening to our lead heroine anymore. The film has little to no graphic violence, and the whole set of characters offered is one dimensional and due to budget issues (I guess?), they never get any chance for developing their personalities or sort of, explain why they do what they do. 

 

Again, this genre is usually unfairly bashed, but Run! Bitch Run! clearly deserves to be considered an insult to a genre with millions of followers around the world. Movies are not made just because, we expect a story to be told, appealing, or at least,  characters we learn to care about throughout the film's running time. Nothing like that happens here, so if you skip it, you're not missing much. 

 

Sleeping slutty beauty.

C'mon! just one more anal!

Positively, for the film maker, his skills were vastly improved in 2010 with the one film I'd recommend from him: Nude Nuns With Big Guns. Another, rape & revenge film, only this time, nothing was taken for granted and every mistake made in Run! Bitch Run! was properly dealt with in order to deliver a movie that people can actually care about watching. 

Overall, a film that is neither for connoisseurs of the genre nor for newbies, yet this film could be watched by untrained eyes as the rape part is treated very lightly compared to other films from the past, and maybe that's a good thing because rape is just too much. The T & A show is not that good either, so if you've really watched every good exploitation film there is, you may want to try this just for the fun of it. 

Here's the movie trailer: