THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT STICKING YOUR HANDS IN THESE SOUNDS, AND CONTROLLING THEM.
I discovered darkwave duo Boy Harsher a few years ago and instantly fell in love with Augustus Muller’s smoky atmospheric synths and Jae Matthews’ sultry vocals. Their four albums have essentially been the soundtrack to my pandemic. So, when the former film students recently announced that they’d written, produced, edited, and directed a short movie called The Runner that would also include an album’s worth of new songs, it immediately shot to the top of my must-see flicks for 2022. It did not disappoint.
Let’s get some business out of the way first. The Runner has a narrative. However, its story is not the focus of the piece. Rather, it stands on equal footing with style and music. With that in mind, I think discussing technical elements and impressions could constitute as spoilers.
The story concerns a nameless and nearly mute female spree killer (Kris Esfandiari is billed only as “the Runner” in the credits). We follow her as she trudges out of a forest and cuts a bloody swath through the countryside. Ambiguous clues to her past are delivered via one-sided telephone calls with an unseen man (Troy Wandzel) who begs her to come home. Boy Harsher themselves also have a part to play, as well. Occasionally, we cut away to music videos for their songs. Sometimes these moments are incorporated into the narrative, like when the band is introduced on a TV in the background of a scene. There are also more meta moments too, though, like when Muller and Matthews are shown making the soundtrack for the film and discussing the character of the Runner.
There are two other significant roles in the film. Underground musician Cooper B Handy (aka Lucy) is a young man who perhaps senses the Runner’s malignant aura from a distance. He also collaborates with Boy Harsher for the cut that plays over the end credits with visuals that showcases his endearingly silly dance skills and earnest lyrics. Sigrid Lauren plays a woman who has an unfortunate tryst with the Runner. Gregg Araki regular James Duval has a cameo.
Boy Harsher’s script is clear, even as it weaves in and out of surrealist territory. There’s a mysterious woman. She kills people. She may or may not be some sort of supernatural monster. Here are some musical sequences. It’s simple enough, really, but the experience is amplified by a pervasive moodiness. With the Runner being mostly silent, her implied trauma is not conveyed through dialog, but we understand its presence, nevertheless.
Esfandiari’s performance is of course key here. The details of her life are unknowable, but we understand her in broad strokes via wounded but ferocious glances and scenes like when she quietly shares a cigarette with a potential lover. She effortlessly keeps our attention and pulls us through admittedly arty circumstances. Muller actually injects a little bit of pleasant humor into the proceedings when describing his musical background. Matthews is warmly introspective in briefly discussing how The Runner is somewhat of an allegory for her own life.
Yes, this is an art film, and sure it’s also a horror film. Though if you want to get nerdy about it, I’d describe it as a neo-grindhouse surrealist backwoods noir wrapped around a handful of music videos. The band edits this together quite well for an experience that feels complete and not disparate. Pacing isn’t an issue, especially when considering the runtime is thirty-eight minutes and change. Boy Harsher’s music obviously lends some tempo to the piece, too.
Daniel Debrey’s photography is beautiful to look at. Befitting the neo-grindhouse vibes, there are some artificial scratches added to the visuals here and there, but they’re thankfully not overdone. I really enjoyed the lurid, almost garish palette. Though it’s never explicitly stated, at least the portions featuring the Runner seem to take place in the ‘80s. Sets are nicely detailed with relics from the era like an old CRT television set housed in a giant wooden box and a landline phone mounted on a wall. Still, the Runner’s demonic duality and the blurring of her reality with that of the band’s makes for a dreamy atmosphere so that there is a certain timelessness to it. The violence is mostly implied, but there is one moment of explicit gore that is nice and gooey. Kudos to special effects tech Jared Balog for delivering the film’s most blatantly shocking moment.
As soon as I finished watching Boy Harsher’s The Runner, I immediately watched it again. Though it isn’t interested in presenting a traditional plot, it manages to immerse you in its world of deserted tree-lined roads, lonely rural highways at night, dilapidated trailer homes, and rustic honkytonks. I think fans of the band will love it. Casual horror viewers with a taste for post-punk music should also find plenty to enjoy, too. Recommended for fans of Nine Inch Nails’ The Broken Movie, Pink Floyd: The Wall, and Twin Peaks. The Runner will begin screening in select theaters on Friday, January 14th, and streaming on Shudder and Mandolin on Sunday, January 16th.
Michael Cavender