Watch Out Twilight, Why Run Sweetheart Run Sees Vampires Much Differently
So the lion chased the lamb...
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:
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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Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.