Warning: Minor SPOILERS are ahead for Run Sweetheart Run, which is now streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription.
It’s universally agreed that vampires are hot, right? Between the classic Dracula movies, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise playing the undead in 1994’s Interview with a Vampire or the Twilight saga of course, we’ve romanticized them a lot. But, the latest take on the blood-suckers in Run Sweetheart Run does quite the opposite, and its writer/director has a bold reason for that.
Run Sweetheart Run sees Charlie’s Angels actress Ella Balinska play Cherie, who is set up on a blind client dinner by her boss. Enter Pilou Asbaek’s Ethan, a charismatic businessman who sweeps the young woman off her feet only to do a 180 and begin pursuing her all evening. Before she knows it, a vampire (who is nothing like Edward Cullen) is after her, and it’s terrifying.
When CinemaBlend spoke to Shana Feste, who co-wrote, directed and produced the vampire movie alongside horror studio Blumhouse Productions, she talked about how her horror movie defies the typical vampire story. And as she explained, her goal was definitely to not hold back when it comes to showing a creature of the night:
What do we think of witches? First of all, there's no such fucking thing as a witch. Like witches are women that were outspoken and wanted to express their opinion and were leaders. Those were the definition of witches. And now we have these, I just watched The Witch, and it's a beautiful movie, but it also it just felt wrong to me to see that that was the definition of a witch – this child killing ghoul. And to romanticize a vampire for me is the same thing. It's like, why are we teaching young girls to want what will literally kill you? No. This is what it looks like. This guy's a freaking demon. This is what a demon looks like. This is how it feels to be pursued by him and how he treats you. I’m reclaiming the witch and I want to demonize vampires.
Feste recently watched one of A24’s best horror movies, Robert Eggers’ The Witch and was disappointed because she feels as though we’ve demonized witches when back in the day, witches were women who wanted to be more than housewives by her (and many people’s) measure, and that's not a bad thing. Vampires, on the other hand, are undead people who prey on one’s blood, oftentimes young women’s blood and that’s somehow become something we fantasize about in our society. It is a little backwards, isn’t it?
It's certainly something worth thinking about, especially since I grew up being a fan of Twilight and the franchise has reached a new generation of viewers as of late, it’s certainly worth thinking about. Shana Feste's feature sucks out all the romance of a human woman and vampire man hitting it off by showing that this monster has power, tons of kills under his belt and a hunger to hunt and play with his “food” before going in for the neck.
Of course, it’s not like we’re all running around thinking that the vampiric relationships in Twilight or The Vampire Diaries are the standard for a realistic and healthy relationship but, after all those depictions, it’s kind of refreshing to see Run Sweetheart Run’s version of this dynamic go the opposite direction with those bloodsuckers. One that really goes to the throat and reminds us, oh yeah… vampires can be really horrible villains.
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