The Run review – glowsticks to the fore as interactive horror-thriller aims to get pulses racing

<p>Audience members vote on the path its jogger heroine should take through this Italian-set chase movie – with appearances from genre cinema heroes Franco Nero and Dario Argento</p><p>Thirty-two-year-old writer-director Paul Raschid is surely too young to recall the multiple endings of 1985’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jan/22/from-terminator-2-to-clue-10-of-the-best-alternative-movie-endings">Clue</a> or the hotly traded <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/27/how-choose-your-own-adventures-helped-me-win-the-booker-prize">Choose Your Own Adventure books</a>. Perhaps <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/role-playing-games">RPGs</a> gave this film-maker a penchant for interactive cinema. Either way, intrepid souls heading to London’s Genesis cinema between now and New Year will hold up glow sticks to determine their path through the woods of Raschid’s latest horror-thriller. The Run demands split-second judgment calls one may not be accustomed to, slumped under a half-ton of popcorn. And there’s a strong possibility you won’t get what you vote for; much like the Guardian wrote of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/27/the-gallery-review-bloody-interactive-treatise-on-post-brexit-britain">Raschid’s 2022 endeavour The Gallery</a>, this feels like an appositely post-Brexit format.</p><p>The path we guide characters down here is literal: we’re directing fitness influencer Zanna (Roxanne McKee) as she circles Lake Garda on what proves an eventful morning jog. The interactive element begins with some light stretches – the audience choose whether she listens to music or a podcast while running, and whether to greet passing locals – before turning existential as our heroine attracts masked pursuers. I felt constitutionally bound to propose kindness wherever possible, but the lively Saturday night audi