Thursday, February 03, 2022

Use of Tropes: the Runner


A short film (some 40-minutes) that appeared on Shudder, this was produced, written and directed by the music duo Boy Harsher and is based around their music. To be honest I’d never heard of the group but the music was great – the first track a cracking slice of darkwave. The film mixes horror imagery and their performances in a way that, to be honest, was rather Lynchian in places.

The horror aspect starts off with a woman (Kris Esfandari), the eponymous Runner, running through woods. Her clothing and face covered in blood. The film cuts back and forth to a hotel room where Boy Harsher are playing on a television. As the scene closes the Runner drops to her knees as, in the room, we see a dead, mutilated man.

feels vampiric

The runner tries to hitch a ride and a truck picks her up but almost immediately we see it rocking and, as we see later, she takes the truck, the fate of the driver unseen but obvious. The film follows her from situation to situation and, at this point, you might be wondering what tropes are used. In truth the film shows us little (baring the forced removal of a heart, from a victim, late on) but at one point we do see her wild-eyed and then the film cuts to a face (her inner monster, perhaps) that has sharp teeth and a blooded mouth. I guess it could be any monster but the teeth and blood felt as though it might be vampiric.

Not a lot to go on, and this is an enigmatic, arty outing. Nevertheless, I felt it deserved a mention. The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon US

On Demand @ Shudder via Amazon UK

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