Her Name Was Christa

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.

The breakdown of my score for Her Name Was Christa, watched . I saw these glowing "reviews", which made me excited to see this. Unfortunately, I was left confused and disappointed.

Story - 2.5: While the general idea grabbed my attention, it had no other supportive qualities to hold it up. Neither villain nor hero and a weak twist that left me disappointed. I kept wishing it had gone in an entirely different direction, which would have raised my score for the storyline.

Acting - 1.5: This is one of the 3 biggest things that hurt this movie. The only character I sort of believed was "Nick" and that actor was working with very little. He may be better in a movie with believable dialogue and direction? The lead, Steven (also the director and writer), was in EVERY scene, unnecessarily. His acting was ridiculously over the top and needed to be brought down quite a bit. It seemed a very ego-driven project to me.

Writing - 1: As I said before, this movie is extremely dialogue based, with poor acting and unrealistic writing. It seemed very lazy. When a story is told with that much dialogue and little to watch on the screen, it better be backed up with insanely good acting and something of interest to hold my attention. It did none of the above.

Cinematography - 2: Again, going back to the lazy aspect of this movie, it was apparent to me that very little went into the thought behind the "look". It was as straight forward as a 7th grade film project. Very little creativity was found in any scene.

Makeup and FX - 2.5: At least they tried. From the makeup on the lead character, down to the fading and eventual corpse of Christa, it was not sufficient. I don't want to get into spoilers, but nothing at all looked natural about the FX, with one exception (pen to the arm).

This movie was trying (and failed) to be a story which has charaters we care about, a lead actor that we are supposed to feel bad for and we are apparently, expected to be consumed by the dialogue? I had none of these feelings. It was honestly, boring, self-serving and over acted to the point that it felt comedic. Although, maybe I missed the point and it was supposed to be funny? If so, about 95% of the dialogue should be edited out. Pass on this one, too slow to be funny, too bad to be good and too disappointing to be shocking.

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.

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.

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.