Review of KRISTY: Hunting Pretty Girls Down

October 27, 2014

I was not exactly expecting much with a title as nondescript as "Kristy". There were also no big name actors to speak of it seems. The news that this film had alternative titles like "Random" and "Satanic" was not too encouraging as well.  I was just in the mood for a horror film one lazy afternoon so I went and watched this. Turns out this film was not exactly horror, but it was not bad at all.

The first frame of the opening credits was the first surprise. It showed the TWC logo. So the Weinstein Company was actually involved with this film! That was a surprise because the publicity was so low key, almost non-existent. It did give me some positive encouragement about the film I was about to watch though, as TWC is known for its Oscar quality films.

The film opens with the scene of a girl being killed by a couple of men wearing hoodies and left in a grassy field. She had a big slash across her neck and a letter K carved on her right cheek. Photos and video of this crime was uploaded onto the Internet, announcing that it was the time to kill "Kristy". "Kristy" it appears is any girl they think is "pretty, pure and blessed", and therefore should be hunted down and killed. To kill "Kristy" is to kill God supposedly.

One Thanksgiving, Justine was the only girl left in their college campus as everyone else went home. When she went to the convenience store to buy some supplies, she encounters a strange girl in a pink hoodie. When she got back to her college dorm, Justine realized that Pink Hoodie and her group of hoodie-wearing hoodlums had all followed her to campus. They were hunting her down, wanting to see her dead. 

Haley Bennett should be a bigger star some day. She looks great and she did very well in the lead role of Justine. She was able to effectively portray the fear and strong will of her smart, never-say-die character. This was no timid damsel-in-distress here. This girl was determined to survive. However, Justine was all alone and outnumbered, will she indeed survive this ordeal?

I was surprised to see that Ashley Greene (better known as vampy vampire Alice Cullen in the "Twilight" films) was actually cast as the main antagonist, the mysterious girl whose internet username was "DrkViolet801". Her face was barely seen at all, always obscured by her pink hoodie. In fact, they could have used another no-name actress and we would not have known the difference. 

This film is not exactly horror though. If you like gore, there was not too much of that, which was ok by me. I would call it a suspense-thriller, and a good one at that. The exciting musical score, along with the sinister whistling and the creepy whispering, was very effective in creating the thickly tense atmosphere necessary for this film to succeed. Some jump scares were pretty good. It would have been better if they gave a little more background about the anti-Kristy cult and what it really stood for though.

With a lot of suspension of disbelief, I actually liked this film as it is. This is not any deep film to analyze or think too much about. Just sit back and enjoy your racing pulse as you watch it. By the way, there is a short extra scene after all the closing credits roll up, if you still care to wait up and watch it. 6/10.