Her Name Was Christa

So, I am FB "friends" with the lead/director of this movie and saw his endless posts to watch his first movie. I am a true supporter of not only low budget movies, but horror, particularly. I wanted to support this guy's efforts and good for him for creating a project from beginning to end. It is not easy. Unfortunately, this is where the compliments end. I had no intention of leaving a review but, he has repeatedly begged and pleaded his friends to leave an IMDB review as well as for the YT trailer. I don't find this to be a particularly desirable or fair request. But, since you pushed me, here it is! I gave it 2 out of 10 because it isn't the worst movie I have ever seen, but it was right next in line. The acting was so unnatural I felt like the bad script was jumping off the screen, which is the 1st thing to take me out of the moment. That was followed by the extremely long and totally unnecessary dialog scenes that were bad to begin with. Why the director and writer would feel the need to put himself on the screen for basically the entire movie is beyond me. However, I think that coupled with the consistent bombardment of begging and pleading on FB you can draw you to your own conclusion. This movie didn't feel like much of anything to me, which is worse than even even hating it IMO. At least even Tommy Wiseau's movie was funny to watch with friends. Good luck to him in the future. Maybe next time he will consider hiring someone who can act to be on screen for 2 hours straight. I have never seen his other acting rolls, but judging by the "Bad Movie Police" series, I will skip those too.

Her Name Was Christa is a movie full of stereotypes, self adoration, unessessarily drawn out discourse and complete lack of creative awareness. I do not typically post reviews, but, had the itch to respond to the absurdity which is praise for this movie. The only thing I found interesting about HNWC was it's failure to deliver any artistic value, talent, timing and consciousness of an authentic conversation. For those unsuspecting casulties...be warned, deception ensues.

Writer/director James L. Edwards' Her Name Was Christa functions as a fascinating character study of Stephen (played by Edwards), an extremely lonely man who, at the urging of a co-worker, decides to seek out female companionship. Soon he's embarking on a "girlfriend experience" relationship with a call girl who goes by the name Candy, but we'll come to find out that her real name is Christa (Shianne Daye). Sure, Stephen is paying Christa for everything they do together, but their interactions are actually rather sweet. The structure of Her Name Was Christa reminded me of Takashi Miike's Audition in the way that it plays like a love story, complete with a love montage, up to the point when things go horribly wrong. The love doesn't exit the picture when things go bad here, though.

I was impressed by how well-written Edwards' dialogue is in Her Name Was Christa. Edwards also delivers a strong performance as Stephen, making him a likeable character we can understand and sympathize with even when he's making questionable decisions we can't condone. Daye is flawless in the role of Christa. She and Edwards have to carry a lot of this movie on their shoulders, and she proves to be fully capable of doing so.

While Her Name Was Christa does get very dark, disturbing, and (thanks to some special effects work courtesy of Alan Tuskes) downright disgusting, it's captivating throughout. Even when appalled I couldn't look away, and I was invested in seeing how it would all turn out for Stephen and Christa. Some viewers won't be able to handle the gross-outs found in the second half, but this movie is going to find some very appreciative fans - and it deserves to.

Sadly this was doomed once Ariauna Albright dropped out. The role of Christa was written for her and it seemed at least that the big draw to this film would be Albright and Edwards reuniting in an attempt to re-capture the chemistry they had in 1997's Bloodletting.

Shianne Daye takes over the role as Christa and she makes an admirable effort. Unfortunately, inserting someone with little to no experience into a role with tons of dialogue written for another person isn't going to work and it doesn't here.

A ton of respect is due to Edwards and everyone involved. It seemed like they ran into an endless amount of setbacks and struggles but they were still able to power through. As much as I tried to keep that in mind while watching the movie, in the end it's just not good.

Can love really hold on forever? Or will it rot eventually (no pun intended)? That is something that you have to figure out yourself. And if you like the slow pace this movie hands you. Because it takes quite a bit of time to get where it is heading. And that is quite the killer ending - if you excuse the pun (if one can even call it that).

It is or at least seems so sweet and innocent most of the time. But since we get clips of the future (or present, depending on how you view the timeline), we know something is off. And it is way off.

This is low budge mayhem, but it knows to shock. If you are open for that kind of stomach turning, wild and disgusting conclusion. For some that may be putting it mildly, for some it may be putting things over the top. Again it all depends on how much you can take and how easily you are offended ... and how squeamish you are. Can't answer that for you ... just remember, this is not normal.