Olly Blackburn’s Kristy is one of the better home invasion thrillers, except in this instance the ‘home’ in question is an entire college campus, empty but for a skeleton staff and Justine (Haley Bennett), who’s planning on staying on campus over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Unfortunately for Justine and everyone else, a cult of religious zealots have targeted Justine in the belief that by killing as many Kristy’s as they can–the name apparently means ‘follower of Christ,’–that somehow they’re killing God (as far as motivations go it’s a bit nutty, but then again taking up serial killing pretty much implies that you’re a few cans short of a six-pack anyway).

You also probably noticed that ‘Justine’ isn’t the same name as ‘Kristy,’ though that’s actually a brilliant detail on writer Anthony Jaswinski’s part in that they’re targeting women not because of their name more than them fitting a certain archetype that works with the cultist’s delusion.

That her name isn’t Kristy is irrelevant (to the victim), which is a pretty smart touch.

Though not everything about the movie is so clever, especially when it shows the tendency of the filmmakers to create unrealistic situations that exist only to bring about a certain outcome, as opposed to feeling organic.

In the scene in question, Justine/Kristy is on the run from the killers–they have already dispatched the two security guards on campus–and she manages to reach the house of the groundskeeper.

Now here’s when things go (mildly) awry.  The groundskeeper not only has a huge rotweiler, but also a shotgun, while the killers just have an assortment of bladed weapons (axes, knives, etc).

It’s worth mentioning that there are at least four of them, but by my math a huge dog and a shotgun more than even up the odds.

And speaking of the dog, this thing probably weighs somewhere in the ballpark of 50-60 pounds; the point being, that’s a lot of pissed-off animal to dispatch with just a knife.

And I’m calling bs on that.  I am not saying that they weren’t capable of killing it, what I am saying is that there’s little chance that at least one of the four wouldn’t have been mauled before it happened.

Then there’s the matter of dispatching the groundskeeper.  When his dog runs outside, he sees something, and fires.  Someone then grabs the barrel of the shotgun from the side, and pulls him with it.

The next time we see the groundskeeper, he’s being hung from a children’s swing.  Now, why there was even a children’s swing there in the first place–they’re not too common on college campuses–but that he was disarmed seemingly with such ease in the first place is also a tad unbelievable.

Though those are relatively minor quibble, ones which most people will probably not let get in the way of their enjoyment of a clever home invasion thriller.