Sundance 2026: ‘Run Amok’ is a Disastrously Bad High School Movie
by Alex Billington
January 27, 2026
There’s always a few intriguing indie creations in the Sundance Film Festival line-up that are frustratingly bad, atrociously misguided films. Unfortunately I watched one of them at the 2026 fest called Run Amok and boy did it bother me. I’m not one to dig into a film, but this deserves serious criticism. This is one of the most shockingly bad examples of wrong-headed storytelling despite good intentions, and despite a desire to openly address a major problem in American society. Based on the short film of the same name, Run Amok is director NB Mager’s feature directorial debut after making a few other shorts as well. When it begins it just seems to be another offbeat, nerdy story of a high school music geek coming-of-age as she works to put on a musical for a special event at the school. Once it reveals what’s really going on in it and what it’s really trying to comment on, instead of building up to anything sharp and cathartic and clever, it instead flounders and flops around. The result is cringy, surface-level commentary that ends up offending rather than helping.
Run Amok is written and directed by filmmaker NB Mager. The film stars Alyssa Marvin as Meg, a geeky young teenage girl in a small town high school whose mom was killed in a school shooting 10 years ago. The school is planning a special commemoration day and Meg takes it upon herself to put on a musical about the event. Yes, this is actually a quirky high school coming-of-age indie comedy about America’s school shooting problem. One of the scenes early on in the movie, as part of Meg’s rehearsals for her show, involves walking the other students through a minute-by-minute reenactment of the shooting, with her cousin Penny (played by Sophia Torres) playing the role of the shooter. The excuse for all of this – what it’s attempting to do as a film – is be honest about school shootings, bring to the forefront all the grief and trauma and aftermath of this horror and how it affects everyone, and address the absurdity of the world American kids are now living in (shooting drills & armed teachers) through the tropes of an indie comedy. Alas the script is so foolish and confused, it ends up never actually providing catharsis or meaningful commentary. And the ending is awful.
It was impressively uncomfortable to watch this and listen to the occasional chuckles of a few people in the audience who seemed to be laughing anyway even though none of it was actually that funny. Run Amok is trying to be a Rushmore meets Theater Camp meets Eighth Grade-esque movie but about school shootings. A group of students start working on Meg’s show, including one annoying cliche jock who should’ve been cut from the script before they even started filming. The rest aren’t as bad but none of them are good either. It’s an incredibly ambitious concept that does not work… Everything about it feels so forced and performative – even the performances themselves are cringe, with the exception of Patrick Wilson. I’m quite shocked that he even agreed to take this role. The only two good scenes in the entire film involve Patrick Wilson getting upset, mainly because he’s the only actor in it capable of handling this kind of complex material, and he’s the only one who seems to have understood the depth of the trauma and struggles that everyone in this story is experiencing. Someone really needed to be honest with Mager and explain how bad this script and cast is.
I do appreciate what this film is trying to do but it fails in almost every aspect – especially in how it actually does not provide catharsis or insight or comfort in discussing school shootings at ALL. And it ends abruptly without resolving any of the plot threads brought up throughout. What happened? How did they miss this? The most frustrating, and in all honesty offensive to actual victims of school shootings, thing about the film is the way it never seriously brings up or thinks about the bigger picture issues intertwined with America’s school shooting dilemma – including the guns, the mental health issues, the culture and unhealthy society that let’s it happen over and over without ever changing or doing anything to stop them. Instead, it actually tries to sympathize with the shooter, seemingly guided by the cliche notion that he was maybe just a lonely, misunderstood kid who needed some more friends and then maybe he wouldn’t have done it. There’s also a subplot with the shooter’s mom, who everyone now hates, but that never goes anywhere either. Why try to bring up all of this yet never genuinely, carefully, clearly address it with any intelligence or understanding? As important as it is for America to discuss this painful topic, this is unquestionably not the right way to do.
Alex’s Sundance 2026 Rating: 3 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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