MotelX 2025 Review: THE RUN Is Another Stab At The Interactive Movie

The interactive movie has had a history since Bob Gale's Mr. Payback and games like Dragon's Lair and probably even way before that. But it never exceeded beyond a gimmick. That is until the game industry found ways to make choose your own adventure games with novel approaches, like Heavy Rain . Netflix even butted in with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, made for an interactive division they subsequently abandoned. Nowadays you can find a lot of hybrids between filmic storytelling, choose your own-adventure storylines and gaming on Steam. But interactive games like that are never shown in the cinema. What would it be like to play a game like that, with an audience? Enter the Motel X screening of Steam-moviegame The Run by Paul Raschid.

The novelty here is in the collective experience. We all got glow sticks that we needed to put up in the air for either choice A or B. The democratically chosen option was the way ahead. This turned into quite the social experiment. Do we, collectively, play it safe? Or do we carelessly trudge along? And do we make morally just choices or do we go for the funner, more selfish options? In a steam like environment, playing solo, I am sure I would have made different choices, playing more goal-oriented to actively avoid deaths and a potentially devastating final end. But in a group setting we riled each other up to make bad choices and go for broke. If an answer could potentially lead to a funny result, that's what we would do.

Which means, in this story, that we made lead character Zanna act fairly selfishly. We leaned into certain of her characteristics. Her being a slightly egotistical fitness influencer meant we would make choices where her headstrong and rude behaviour became our guideline somewhat. When she eventually starts to be attacked by a group of assassins wearing skull masks, the group-think led to some careless behaviour. Sometimes that would turn out well, as the makers tried to keep the outcome of our choices somewhat unpredictable (but almost never unfair). Sometimes it made me roll my eyes at the group missing the obvious traps we were running headfirst into. Like when we grabbed a gun that was clearly so old it would certainly jam. It did.

Ultimately the group choices made me somewhat philosophical. Acting careless made me realize this is what we want from horror: characters deliberately being driven into danger. Playing it safely would mean acting counter intuitive to that narrative strand. That might work while playing solo, if you want to unlock the right ending. But if you want a cinema experience you need to make risky and dangerous choices. Luckily, the people at the Portuguese MotelX festival were risktakers like that.

And as a group we would make the funny choices as well. Especially after Zanna kills an assassin and is forced to make a choice. Abandon him or Help. We chose Help, just for shits and giggles and the narrative whiplash that ensues was frankly quite hilarious. Having stabbed him with a large knife several times, Zanna bends over him: "Are you okay? Put some pressure on the wound". He coughs up blood and dies.

Which also means you can't really judge The Run itself as a coherent narrative feature as its story and strands are dictated by a fickle audience. The interest here is in the clash between audience behaviour and traditional storytelling. That the storytelling is therefore a bit clunky can be forgiven. It is quite the surprise that the denouement, even if it is cliche, is as coherent as it is.

That the cliches come with a dash of Catholic propaganda is annoying. The whole final act plays out like one of PureFlix's Christian genre films or a Left Behind-franchise entry. That it features a nice cameo from Dario Argento is a plus. He joins other Italian genre-royalty in this interactive film because we also have cameos from Fabio Testi and Franco Nero. It gives some depth to the horror bonafides of the film, because otherwise it would be a fairly lackluster affair. Because outside of the novelty of the experience The Run is very run of the mill. Still, that it feels like a well trodden story is surprising for an adventure of your own choosing. The Run is a fun experience, especially with an audience. As a stand alone solo experience your mileage may vary.