Kristy

Plot: An intelligent college woman find herself alone at her campus over a holiday and chance encounter with strangers leads her to overcome almost insurmountable odds to survive a murderous cult in this survival horror movie.

Technical analysis: This movie has pleasant understated acting. Good atmospheric soundtrack that don't try to make up for a lack of suspense as you find in so many other scary movies. Although bordering on the realm of horror i would classify this more as a survival thriller. Thus you wont find any gore splatter or high body counts here which is refreshing for a thriller/horror that remains suspenseful throughout.

There is a Macguyverish element where the lead must outwit her pursuers and this is captivating in itself. All in all worthy immersion and even suitable for those that otherwisely shun horror movies.

Kristy got only a few elements of horror and is in my opinion rather a movie of the thriller genre. A young woman is hunted by a bunch of wild gooses on a campus while (almost) everybody else is gone because of Thanksgiving break. Production and acting are solid and so is the story and movie. Kristy: worth a watch - if you like the genre or the theme of crazies hunting someone. If not, don't bother watching.

I found this movie to be a mixed bag of positives and negatives. The story is pretty weak with it mostly being a cat-and-mouse chase where the main character is being hunted down by a cult group. I found the cybercult to be an interesting idea then made snuff films for the underground website they called their victims Kristy because the name of Latin origin means "follower of God". Other than that the movie is mostly about the main character running or hiding from them. It makes the plot easily predictable and is repetitive with her going to current places around campus. I do like the atmosphere of the movie with its chilling opening and how the villains could be anywhere around campus. And I do like that later in the movie the main character decides to fight back against the group and makes smart decisions throughout.

One other flaw is that the movie contains cheap and fake scares throughout.

People are harsh on this one because the film got them wanting more, some surprises, some better scenes, better kills and so on. Problem here lays in the fact that first of all, Kristy managed to get you wanting more and this is not something you just skip on.

Yes, it is better than far many such productions and indeed also quite predictable so here you'll have to choose: either go for a decent horror and not expect too much out of it or watch it with the purpose of raging on every aspect that you dislike. It's not a good idea to go too hard on it because others will avoid it, and let's be honest here, it deserves a view or two. It is a well done movie, good acting, good surroundings, "decent" is the word to best describe it.

I wouldn't go all hating on it, let others make their own opinion, for me, was a good change of pace, finally got to see something better baked, not entirely, but not raw at all. I say you go for it!

Cheers!

"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.