When a college girl who is alone on campus over the Thanksgiving break is targeted by a group of outcasts, she must conquer her deepest fears to outwit them and fight back.
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Wow! Such a good movie.
A different way of telling a story
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
This is a very well done thriller. The suspense is maintained throughout the film up until the last scene. I found myself really pulling for Justine, wanting to see if she could out wit the gang. Typically in this sort of movie, the protagonist makes one stupid move after another. Not so in this movie; Justine is pretty smart. The way the movie ends makes it seem like there may be a sequel?
I actually just finished this for a second time. There were certain things I found a little hard to follow the first time but maybe that is just me. The internet angle I found confusing on first go around. Certain events happen so fast I could not see very well what happened. It made a difference seeing it in the day the first time and night the second time. Do not watch this in the day! It is an atmospheric movie. It must be at night.The acting from our main girl draws me in, her performance is always alluring. The soundtrack is fantastic too, the themes stay with me. I would even say it may be my favorite movie soundtrack and definitely in my top 5. The music and this movie go really well together, hand in hand. Most movies have maybe one song I love with it, maybe not even that. This is one of the rare ones where I dig every single song and gives the movie a great vibe and overall presence.Movie has great twists and turns, keeps me interested, and the internet angle to things is a fun spin on it. Certain stuff may make more sense in a second go around. I found myself thinking about it a lot after the first time and it became clear I needed to rewatch to make sense of certain things better. On second watch I can confirm, very solid movie, very atmospheric, well written, well acted, definitely worth a go, at night, and not with people who talk during movies.I hope we see more films like this. I also dig the abandoned college angle.
"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.
Staying behind at college during the weekend, a lonely student finds herself stalked by a group of deranged psychos participating in an internet-themed killing game of tormenting and killing women and must find a way of eluding her tormentors and ending the game.While there were some big problems here, there's also a ton of positive elements to be found within here. What really stands this one up is the sheer randomness and utter normality of what's going on here, managing to take something that could very well happen and putting a terrifying twist onto it. Setting up the initial encounter from the mini-mart encounter and then allowing the ensuing action to come from that is quite terrifying, especially with the taunting and video-work done throughout that show how they've been following her from the beginning makes for a truly chilling set-up that gives this a really strong feel here. That tormenting here is top-notch as well as the relentless nature of their assaults mean a plethora of fantastic stalking and encounters throughout which make for plenty of fun times here, as the scenes in the dorm where she stumbles upon the concept of the group coming after her, the discovery of the dead bodies which ironically comes at the very beginning of the chase and the tense confrontations in the main dining hall that set up the later chasing throughout here. As well, the confrontations here on the rest of the campus make for a complete vision of what they're attempting to accomplish here with the battle at the maintenance shack, the parking garage ambush and the delightful stalking in the library and swimming pool give this a great sense of thrilling action alongside the brutality in which they continually mete out at her expense. These here are what work for this one as there's a few detrimental flaws here at play. The biggest issue here is the fact that the group here is entirely unimposing and non-threatening, almost to the point of being comical rather than threatening. The comical tin-foil masks and blunt instruments used for weaponry here doesn't really inspire much fear, and especially considering the ease of which they're defeated in actual brawling confrontations makes it seem all the more unlikely why that wasn't a more focal option earlier as they're defeated here with surprising ease considering they're supposed to be vicious tormentors who get their fix videotaping these crimes and intimidating victims, making it seem like we're supposed to be afraid of them because they told us to be rather than using their on-screen actions to do so for them. As well, another big flaw here is the fact that there's just absolutely nothing all that well thought-out about the actual website that's supposedly driving this killing spree, which is so shrouded in mystery that there's not only nothing known about what they're actually trying to accomplish here with their rampage but also what is the appeal of going out filming these violent deaths as a line at the end shows that this is a nationwide problem. Still, there's a lot more to like here which makes this one quite enjoyable.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, drug use and sounds of off- screen animal torture.