Kristy

I was not exactly expecting much with a title as nondescript as "Kristy". There were also no big name actors to speak of it seems. The news that there were alternative titles like "Random" and "Satanic" was not too encouraging as well. I was just in the mood for a horror film one lazy afternoon so I went and watched this. Turns out it was not exactly horror, but it was not bad at all.

The first frame of the opening credits was the first surprise. It showed the TWC logo. So the Weinstein Company was actually involved with this film! That was a surprise because the publicity was so low key, almost non-existent. It did give me some positive feedback about the film I was about to watch though, as TWC is known for its Oscar quality films.

The film opens with the scene of a girl being killed by a couple of men wearing hoodies and left in a grassy field. She had a big slash across her neck and a letter K carved on her right cheek. Photos and video of this crime was uploaded onto the Internet, announcing that it was the time to kill Kristy. To kill Kristy is to kill God supposedly. "Kristy" it appears is any girl they think is "pretty, pure and blessed", and therefore should be hunted down and killed.

One Thanksgiving, Justine was the only girl left in their college campus as everyone else went home. When she went to the gas station to buy some supplies, she encounters a strange girl in a pink hoodie with piercings on her lip. When she got back to her college though, she became the target of Pink Hoodie and her group of her hoodie-wearing hoodlums all wanting to see her dead.

Haley Bennett should be a bigger star some day. She looks great and she did very well in the lead role of Justine. She was able to portray the fear and determination of her smart, never-say-die character. This was no timid damsel-in-distress here. This girl was determined to survive. However, as Justine was alone and outnumbered, will she survive or not?

I was surprised to see that Ashley Greene (better known as vampy vampire Alice Cullen in the "Twilight" films) as the main antagonist, with internet username DrkViolet801. Her face was barely seen at all, hidden by her pink hoodie. They could have used another no-name actress and we would not have known the difference.

This film is not exactly horror though. If you like gore, there was not too much of that as well. I would call it a suspense-thriller, and a good one at that. I felt the use of music, along with the whistling and the whispering, was very effective in creating the thickly tense atmosphere necessary for this film to succeed.

With a lot of suspension of disbelief, I actually liked this film as it is. This is not any deep film to analyze or think too much about. Just sit back and enjoy your racing pulse as you watch it. By the way, there is an extra scene after all the closing credits roll up, if you still care to wait up and watch it. 6/10.

"Kristy" has a young university student, Justine, staying on campus for the Thanksgiving break and forgoing returning home until Christmas. Her rich roommate Nicole, who had originally planned on staying with her, goes to see her family last-minute in Aspen, leaving Justine and the campus security guards alone for the Thanksgiving holiday. After taking a trip to a rural convenience store, Justine runs into a group of young people who seem to want trouble, and upon returning to her empty dorm, finds herself in for one hell of a night.

Maybe it's because I love a good college campus slasher, or maybe it's because I'm a grad student who's about to spend his first Thanksgiving alone (albeit in New York City, not in the backwoods in which this film is situated), but I was completely taken in by this film from the beginning. The premise from the get-go is very straightforward: girl alone on a sprawling rural college campus. What could go wrong?

The film establishes its villains from the beginning in an internet montage which features video and cryptic text from secret message forums, implicating some sort of new age cult committing ritual killings across the country which are then posted on the internet. While this is admittedly disturbing, I honestly found some of the most interesting the scenes to be within the following exposition of the film, in which Justine finds herself at her own wits, entertaining herself and wandering around the empty college campus. The director, Oliver Blackburn, has a stylish way of illustrating her solitude, and there is something relatable and quietly eerie in this first thirty or so minutes of the film; in spite of the fact that nothing ostensibly scary is happening on screen, there is a very ominous and unnerving mood that gets established; this is what really absorbed me most and got me invested.

By the time Justine leaves the campus late in the evening to run to the local convenience store, the audience knows intuitively that her languid Thanksgiving is about to take a wild turn for the absolute worst, and the suspense of it is taut and subtle up to that point. Unfortunately, from there the film begins to temporarily devolve. For having such an understated and ominous exposition, the film is too quick to take the route of a hyperactive thriller, and spends a good thirty minutes devoting itself to flashy cat-and-mouse chase scenes. While some of these are inarguably effective, it is routine and gets old fast. It is not until the last twenty minutes that the film redeems this devolution with an entertaining (albeit also routine) retribution. While all of this is nicely shot and at times startling, I kept thinking to myself how much I missed the subtlety that pervaded the beginning, and in reflection, that was honestly when I was most unnerved.

The acting here is surprisingly above standard, with Haley Bennett as the competent lead. Ashley Greene plays the counterpoint female cultist, with Mathew St. Patrick as the likable security guard and James Ransone making an unexpected minor appearance. The production values are high and I'm honestly surprised this film wound up slipping under the radar as it did. Granted, it's not entirely original (comparisons to "The Strangers" and "Them" are almost unavoidable), but it is a technically well-made film and is far more interesting than any horror film to hit theaters this past fall.

Overall, "Kristy" is a solid film. I especially commend it for building such a stylish and taut exposition—I honestly can say that the first thirty minutes of the film were among the most inexplicably unnerving I've seen in a long time; quietly creepy even though nothing creepy is happening. As I pointed out, the film does take the cat-and-mouse action a bit too far in my opinion and perhaps is too fast to launch into it, but the final act is satisfying and I was able to overlook this because I found the first act so absorbing and enigmatically spooky. 7/10.

"The Strangers" meet the university (student), except it was better than The Strangers. The Strangers was a bit of a downer juxtaposing chance and violence. They pick you and you die. True, while unsystematic random violence is to be feared it can hardly stand alone as dominant story-telling. Yea need a reason. 'WE' need a reason. This movie....Kristy.... provides that reason by means of meager, yet plausible, cultism. The first half of the movie is good scary stuff, the back half.............an action film. Run for your life kind of mania. But I nevertheless enjoyed it for some strange reason. Her expression perhaps.....................I'm not sure exactly, but i believe that was it. She was very convincing.

PROS: A good part about the movie was the idea as a whole. The way the scenes were set up allowed for a great amount of fear and horror. The script also allowed for the main character to be resilient, not just for the sake of the movie, but just in general. There was nothing that happened that couldn't actually happen. Although this made the movie very readable, it didn't take away from the fear that it naturally would instill. A movie with a strong, independent, female lead will always be a fun watch!

CONS: The most aggravating part of the movie was the ending. There was so much more that could have been developed, but it just got cut short. I got quite frustrated at this fact because the movie lacked a lot of substance during the actual process, therefore I relayed heavily on the ending to give me that extra umph to propel the film. Another part that could have been improved was the acting. For some reason all the actors felt very stagnant. The main female character had pretty much two factions to her acting, 1. CONFUSION, and 2. BADA** MODE. Which are two good characteristics, but not the only things you need to be the star of a film. The final things that got me really angry was the fact that the main villains always found a way to find the main girl. It is an entire freaking college, and somehow they always found a way to find the girl. This gave the film a rather unbelievable factor.

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We enjoyed watching it. It's a slasher, some creepy vibes. Little bit like the strangers except on a college campus. Overall good! A good scare and fun time.