Her Name Was Christa

A male colleague once told me about his many relationships with hooker and strippers by saying that they "appealed to his rich and varied fantasy life." He treated them like girlfriends, bought them expensive gifts and trips, and took care of their housing. In return, he got sex, arm candy and one way relationships where he had all the control. He wasn't really a cad. He was a sad and empty man who bought fantasy.

James L. Edwards wrote, acted and directed this movie about a man whose entire life is a dead end job and an empty house. When the man can no longer bear being alone, he takes the advice of a friend and buys a few nights with a hooker. The hooker is an intelligent young woman with a dark secret. As two broken people try to help each other, the man finds he cannot let go.

What happens in this movie has actually happened in real life, and Edwards is kind and compassionate about how he lets us into the world of his characterss. However, it is a horror movie, and not for weak stomachs.

I liked the movie a lot, in spite of the "EW!"

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.

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.

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.