Run Rabbit Run begins with an incredible vista of shallow flooded plains, white bark trees protrude out of the sheen, it’s an incredible and eerie sight. We find our lead, Sarah (played by Succession’s Sarah Snook), lying on a muddy bank. There is no indication of what has happened but it is a foreboding promise, a promise which the film never really keeps.

Flashing back we learn that Sarah is a healthcare worker specialising in fertility, she is co-parenting her daughter Mia (Lily Latore), nicknamed Bunny, with her ex-husband (Damon Herriman) who is starting a new family with his partner; and Sarah’s father has recently passed away. This full serving of life is only intensified when a white rabbit appears on their front doorstep which Mia adopts in more ways than one. Making a crude pink rabbit mask (that serves are the main imagery used in the films marketing), Mia begins her transformation into “Creepy Horror Kid”, insisting that she is actually named Alice (the news of Sarah’s younger sister who had disappeared when they were children). Mia regularly haunts doorways and windows watching Sarah, drawing disturbing drawings on the backs of all of her art projects and insists that she wants to see her “real mother”. Sarah relents and takes Mia to visit her grandmother, who is living in an aged care facility, suffering from dementia. As the film progresses Sarah is pulled further back into her past as her mind unravels.

Written by Australian author Hannah Kent (her first feature screenplay) and directed by Daina Reid (The Handmaid’s Tale, The Secret River), the film is a poetic, almost lyrical exploration of grief and guilt and feels very literary. There a few key allusions to Alice in Wonderland, that feel like they may spiral into something more fantastical but never do. For the duration, the movie walks a fine line of madness and metaphor that may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The horror tropes that are deployed are well trodden ground and may even feel a little uninspired. It’s hard to keep The Babadook out of your mind while watching Run Rabbit Run, the same kind of motherly decedent into grief and guilt stricken madness is explored but where The Babadook thrived in creating its own mythology and closed circuit world, Run Rabbit Run feels more scatter shot.

Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott (These Final Hours, The Turning) creates such a rich atmosphere and features some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen in an Australian film, the flood plains, the rivers, cliffside beach. Elliot and Reid showcase and integrate the landscapes into the film, there is no feeling of them being tacked-on second unit shots. It is a wonderful advertisement for Victorian tourism, which is a bit of a backhanded complement for a horror film.

The Prognosis:

Ultimately the film is beautifully shot, strongly performed and manages to carry a sense of dread throughout most of the run time, giving us a few solid scares, but it feels like a shallow adaptation of a book with so many threads that deserve more investigation and a hollowness that the prose would certainly fill. 2.5/5

• Oscar Jack