RUN, HIDE, DIE

Potential victims

RUN, HIDE, DIE (akaThe Anniversary/2012). Director: Collin Joseph Neal. 

NOTE: This review contains spoilers. 

Addie (Alison Monda) lost her husband to an apparent murder a year ago. To help her get through the memories, a group of girlfriends take her to her former in-laws' cabin for some r and r. After what seems an interminable amount of gal-bonding and silly horseplay (yes, even ladies can make fart jokes), the tone abruptly shifts and the gals all wind up tied up in a bedroom, whimpering and moaning without stop as if they were all eight-years-old. What's strange about this is that their assailant is a middle-aged woman, who turns out to be Addie's former mother-in-law, Janet (Gail Harvey). Then her husband, Jim (Philip D. Clarke) gets in the act. 

star and scripter Alison Monda

Run, Hide, Die was scripted by its star, Alison Monda, who seems out to prove that even female screenwriters can write stories in which women are continuously debased, this time by another woman. There's a kernel of a good idea in this nominal slasher, which takes much too long to get going, and delivers more grossness than genuine horror. The acting is mostly okay, but the direction is pretty routine. One bizarre, almost comical aspect of the story is that Addie knows that her husband actually committed suicide, and doesn't want to tell anyone why. You keep wondering what this shocking revelation could be and it's simply -- get this -- that he's gay? Big whoop! Worse, she finds out that he's gay because he's HIV positive, as if heterosexuals never get HIV. What century is Ms. Monda living in? At least there are a couple of lesbian//bi characters among the young ladies.

But then Monda presents most of the women characters, except the one "final" gal who survives, as utterly helpless whiners who don't seem capable of doing a single thing to fight back against their much, much older attacker. In one tediously drawn-out sequence, none of the women even seem to get angry that they are being held captive. 

Verdict: Perfectly okay, if you've never seen a single other horror flick. *1/2.