Kristy is a horror-thriller I probably would have eventually stumbled upon because of my fondness for stars Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train, The Magnificent Seven remake) and Ashley Greene (the Twilight saga, Summer's Blood), but, in this case, became aware of because it cropped up on several lists I encountered while in search of Thanksgiving-themed horror flicks.
Despite the title, it actually revolves around a girl named Justine (Bennett), who has to stay in her college dorm over the Thanksgiving holiday break because she can't afford to fly home. Although she does get invites to go to spend the holiday with her boyfriend, Aaron (Lucas Till, Laid to Rest, "Havok" in the X-Men movies) and his family, as well as a last-minute one from roommate Nicole (Erica Ash, Scary Movie 5), she opts to stay on campus to study instead. Bad move.
Unfortunately for her, she has a run-in with the creepy Goth-type chick, Violet (an unrecognizable Greene) at a convenience store, who, along with her three masked buddies, follow her back to the essentially deserted campus to terrorize her and anyone else who has the misfortune to get in their way. But why exactly? And who is Kristy?
As we see in a brief prologue, "Kristy" is a mark selected by an online site which directs followers all over America to kill, pegging them as "followers of Christ," which I assume essentially means that they are normal, Girl-next-door types that whoever is posting on the site deems has to go for whatever reason. Perhaps because they are seemingly "normal" and anyone who is a part of this online-based cult is obviously not.
Whatever the case, as we also see in the prologue, this kind of thing is happening all over the US, with the site's followers posting photos of their "conquests" to prove that they completed their "mission." We see various examples of this in quick-cut rapid succession before the film switches its focus to following the latest "Kristy," our heroine Justine.
Needless to say, Violet and her gang picked the wrong "Kristy" or we wouldn't have a movie. Rather than the spoiled privileged type they assume her to be- somewhat understandable, as Nicole lends Justine her Beamer while she's out of town, which Violet snarkily remarks on at the store- this particular girl is resourceful and wily.
And she just so happens to have more access than a normal student would otherwise have, on account of her various work-study jobs, which include working in the cafeteria and the library, as well as access to the recreational center, where she practices swimming as a member of the college team. Needless to say, all of these things will come in handy and serve Justine well when hiding out and trying to evade these psychos.
Now, as someone who was in the same boat as Justine once upon a time- I, too, was a work-study student, so I can confirm that I had access to certain places after-hours as well, and often used them before I had my own personal computer or laptop- I could certainly relate to the scenario. I also stayed on campus one Thanksgiving, and though it wasn't quite as deserted as it was here, it was pretty much a ghost town for a few days, with the vast majority of people going home for the holidays.
As we see here, there were a few employees about, mostly security guards, but also a few students as well. I, too, had a bit of a scare in the laundry room when another student crept up on me while I was jamming out on my iPod and didn't hear them coming.
Indeed, the whole experience of the campus being so deserted led me to write my own horror movie, which I attempted to get made to no avail when it was announced that they were tearing down the dorm building I lived in at the time to build a new one.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get permission, even though the place was essentially deserted after school let out for the summer that year. My movie would have been more of a slasher- think The Dorm that Dripped Blood- than this one, but it was still cool seeing someone have a similar idea and actually be able to follow through on it.
Alas, in my case, it didn't happen, and I ended up moving off-campus to a house with a roommate instead of staying, as the next-level up of housing was a little too expensive for my budget at the time. That said, I could certainly relate to Justine here, as I also did the work-study thing and didn't have my own car for a while, either. And you better believe the scene of her filling out the dreaded FAFSA gave me flashbacks as well!
All of which was to say I was somewhat predisposed to like this one, between all of that and the presence of Bennett and Greene, but that is not to say it isn't a solid little movie, if a bit on the no frills side. Indeed, it's probably the whole nondescript nature of the flick that led to it bypassing theaters altogether, at least in the States, and going straight to cable, in this case, to, of all things, the Lifetime network.
Granted, it isn't exactly a gore-fest, so I doubt they had to cut out that much for the TV version, save one or two somewhat bloody/violent deaths. By most horror movie standards- not counting the whole PG-13 ghost movie-type thing- even in its unrated form, it's pretty tame. I can't imagine much being lost in the translation if you were to watch it on TV, and it does indeed kind of have that whole Lifetime vibe, at least in terms of there being a strong female protagonist facing off against a psychotic foe- or in this case, four of them.
That may sound a bit like an insult, but I don't mean it as one. I've indulged in a few Lifetime movies over the years, and every now and again, they get one right, such as the intense Big Driver, an effective Stephen King adaptation, and the nutty remakes of Mother, May I Sleep with Danger and the Flowers in the Attic saga. In this case, it was never intended to be a Lifetime movie, it just ended up one, so take that into consideration.
Either way, the film is readily available in its uncut form on DVD/Blu-Ray and on Netflix, which is where I watched it, at least at the time of this writing. Though more of a suspense-thriller than a full-tilt horror flick, the stuff we see on the Kristy website is pretty disturbing, and brings to mind another film that one of the producers of this one (Scott Derrickson) was involved in, Sinister.
The writer is Anthony Jaswinski, the man behind Satanic and the somewhat similar The Shallows, which also sees a lone female protagonist square off against a dangerous foe- in that case, a shark. The film was directed by Oliver Blackburn, who has directed several episodes of the TV series StartUp and Victoria, as well as the feature film, Donkey Punch.
The film has a nice, atmospheric look to it, courtesy of Crille Forsberg, who's done a lot of stylish music videos for artists like David Bowie, Bruno Mars and Drake, so he does a great job here of making a relatively normal-looking college campus look foreboding and creepy. The film was shot on location in New Orleans, mostly at Tulane University, but doesn't really look it. It could be a relatively isolated college anywhere, really.
The cast is good, but, aside from Bennett's character, Justine, they admittedly don't get a lot to work with, so what you see is basically what you get, and since we spend most of our time with Justine, she's really the only one we get to known in any meaningful way.
Also cropping up are James Ransome (also of Sinister) as Scott, an employee at the college who lives right by the campus and Matthew St. Patrick (Six Feet Under) as a security guard, neither of whom do poor Justine much good. Ditto Till, who is likable, but not much else, character-wise. Honestly, most of them are just around as fodder for the wackos on campus, so that they get to nab a few victims, at least.
All in all, it's a decent enough watch, if maybe of the one-and-done variety. I don't think there's anything to be gained from re-watching it over and over again, that's for sure. The premise in general I could see maybe spawning a few sequels, and it is indeed set up for one in the end, what with the cult being all over America, after all. (There's also a brief post-credits sequence, BTW- and no, that's not supposed to be Justine in it, for the record, which would be a sucky ending, to be sure.)
I could see an interesting, Purge-like expansion of the film's overall back-story that could deal with the inner-workings of the cult- how it started, who started it, the overall endgame, if there is one beyond killing innocent-looking girls. But it could just end here and that would be fine as well. Neither does it do much with the whole Thanksgiving gambit, aside from a few decorations glimpsed here and there, so I can't imagine it being an annual holiday watch for that reason, either.
The end result is sort of like The Strangers on a college campus, if they were mainly after one person instead of a houseful of people. Most of the killers wear freaky masks like the ones in that film, and the whole online cult thing is something I've seen in a few movies before, such as Cradle of Fear and, I want to say, one of the V/H/S films as well.
In other words, it's nothing you probably haven't seen before, but it is bolstered by a strong central performance from Bennett and the excellent cinematography, so there's that. In the end, it's a decent time-waster, and not much else, but there's nothing wrong with that. It is what it is, I suppose.
That said, I say check it out, if only once! 😉
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