Lately, there has been an explosion of horror movies featuring a discrete theme: a group of masked assholes is killing random people (in this case, an unattractive, broke college student who is dating the X-Men’s Havok), usually to either film it or just to get their rocks off. This movie is one of those.
The antagonists, we learn, are filming it and sharing their exploits on the dark web. This is also a strong theme lately in horror. In these movies, their ability to execute their plans ranges from professional to amateur hour — this time, we’re closer to the A on the dial than the P. These people are basically college-age assholes.
The title of the movie is a sort of pre “Karen” — Kristy is a generic name these people bestow upon their victims. Kristy is apparently a nameless, faceless, young female woman who is upper-class and potentially a Christian, and these folks hate Kristy. A lot. Like, a murderous amount.
This falls under our Thanksgiving purview, and is in fact the first Thanksgiving movie in our slot, because the attack on our Kristy (I didn’t think to write down her real name in the movie) takes place… during Thanksgiving! It seems Broke Mistaken Identity Kristy is staying behind at her college, borrowing her rich friend’s car, and is literally the only person there other than a few staff.
Having been to college I find that hard to believe. Harder to believe than the rest of it, in fact — I have no problem believing in dark-web inspired murder gangs, because humans will kill for just about any reason and as social media shows us, people like “likes.”
Now, another feature of these movies lately is the attempt at revenge on the perpetrators of this vile, masked random murder. Kristy has that in spades and we get a new category: Revenge Kills! That’s right, Kristy fights back and gets some kills of her own.
This is a good movie, for our purposes. It’s not particularly scary, but it’s at least good enough for a win — and Thanksgiving marches on with a 2-1 record thanks to the split in the April Fool’s Day films. One more to go: Do we tie Halloween, or does Thanksgiving+AFD beat it?
Report card:
Runtime: An hour twenty-five.
Acting: Good.
Effects: None to speak of.
Violence: A lot, and more off screen.
Dead Townsfolk: Definitely five, more implied off screen.
Revenge Kills: Four!
Gun Use: Nothing unrealistic.
Gore: Not really.
Creepy? No.
Monster Type? This decade’s favorite: Idiots in masks.
Monster Ick Factor: No.
Funny? A little bit.
Nudity: No.
Pet Death: Yes.
Pacing: Pretty decent.