KRISTY

Justine is a model student who, for economic reasons and the need to make up for lost study hours, decides not to go home for Thanksgiving and stays in the university campus where she lives. Without the company of her boyfriend and her best friend, who at the last moment joins her father to celebrate the important occasion, the young woman is completely alone in the building with the two night guards as the only presences to give her security and peace of mind. Everything proceeds well when Justine goes to the nearby supermarket where she meets a strange and unsettling girl who first verbally assaults her and then chases and rear-ends her with her car. The episode seems to end here, but in reality it is only the beginning of a nightmare that will last all night with the protagonist chased and targeted by a group of masked people belonging to a mysterious religious sect that sows blood and death in all campuses of the United States. The hunt is open... The oldest and most deeply rooted fear in the human mind since the dawn of time is that of loneliness and the inability to relate and communicate with any form of life. A fear that turns into terror, however, when one realizes that one is not really alone and the domestic enclosure, in which one feels protected, is not as safe as one thought. It is precisely from this atavistic unease that the horror cinema has always been able to draw great inspiration with a myriad of films of the "Home invasion" subgenre and great authors who have based much of their filmographies on the theme of the siege and the violation of internal spaces; just think of the master John Carpenter and works such as "Assault on Precinct 13," "The Thing," and "Ghosts of Mars" in which this theme is brought to high levels of stylistic and narrative achievement. Another author who adds to this strand is Oliver Blackburn who with his second work as a director, entitled "Kristy," creates one of the most interesting and successful horror films in recent times (not that it takes much given the general level of products released in theaters!) thanks to a sure and solid hand and a story as simple as it is effective in touching the chords of genuine terror. Blackburn, who had already made a name for himself with the valuable first work "Donkey Punch," demonstrates that he is perfectly aware of the classic stylistic elements of horror cinema and handles with mastery everything that contributes to creating continuous tension. Inevitable, therefore, the use of sound jumps, ambient noises and the recourse to a photography capable of creating really unsettling atmospheres and continuously varying even the tones of the colors used. All this is associated with a wonderful sense of rhythm that translates into a plot that allows very few pauses and the choice to use both indoor and outdoor environments. A decision that, in addition to giving more momentum to the aforementioned rhythm, proves functional to infuse the film with both a home invasion and a classic American slasher vibe from the 1980s; the latter aspect reaches its sublimation when the protagonist is chased by figures whose face is covered by silver masks and armed with large knives ready to disembowel their victim, just as happened in what is considered by many as the golden decade of horror cinema. The mother scene, in this sense, is that of the long chase in the library with Justine who is forced to wriggle between the shelves whose corridors are deliberately framed from afar so as to make them long and endless, which further sharpens the sense of oppression and encirclement. The only minor criticisms that can be made are those of not lingering even a little on physical violence, even in those moments when it would not have been out of place, and an ending a little too telegraphed that nevertheless does not detract from the good outcome of a film that is overall positive and refreshing for all genre enthusiasts. Excellent is the performance of a Haley Bennett at ease in portraying a character who over the course of the story transforms from a serious and diligent girl into an accidental heroine as tradition dictates for this type of film. As for the rest of the cast, however, the performances are unassessable as the faces are covered by masks or by cumbersome hoods, including that of Ashley Greene whose high potential is exploited only in very few passages. "Kristy," in conclusion, is really a well-made film and made with great care for every detail and exemplary of how a quality product can be made even for the general public.