Run For Your Life is a captivating watch from start to finish. It's an art-house style indie thriller that vibrates with a bizarre, otherworldly atmosphere despite its every-day setting.
The story revolves around three troubled youths and their experiences in an unnamed small American town. William (played by Chris Labadie), his sweetheart Janice (Melissa Farley) and his best friend Gator (Jessie Navarro-Parks) are all clearly very troubled, and live difficult home lives with abusive parents. Things take a turn for the paranormal after William suffers a head injury and begins to be accosted by a strange specter who may or may not have always been there.
The character development in RFYL is its main strength and the foundation that the film is built upon. The film is a little rough around the edges and has some minor markings of a less experienced production crew and script writer, but its strengths more than make up for it when it comes to the viewing experience. William and company will draw you in quite quickly into their complex characters that you won't even notice the film's minor technical flubs unless you're really looking for them.
I HAVE to mention Bill Connor's portrayal as William Fawl Sr. - young William's hard-nosed alcoholic father. At first he seems like he's simply a foil for his son, the main character. But on closer inspection he becomes the most realistic character in the film - a lot of the details of his past are intentionally left out, but as he's developed through the course of the story it's revealed that he's ravaged by tragedy (and really here's where the brilliance in Bill Connor's acting shines) but unlike William Jr., Gator, and Janice, he has no one to turn to - his pain manifests itself in his addiction and occasional cruelty. He has an extremely revealing line ("You belong to ME!", he says to his son) that shows he's just a broken man that wants to hold onto the only piece of his shattered family that he has left, but just doesn't know how.
Did I mention that this is an arthouse-style film? RFYL doesn't follow the traditional story-telling formula about a hero answering the call with a final, positive resolution to end on. There are no heroes here - just broken people, and the monsters within them.
Run For Your Life is definitely worth an hour of your time if you're looking for a film watching experience that'll draw you in from start to finish. If you've read this far and still haven't watched it, I strongly urge you to just hit "play". You won't regret it.
