The Devil Wears Coachella (cause that's a clothing brand, right?)

Like any teen-centric horror flick, Satanic opens with a deep quote about hell by none other than Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Okay then. 

Quick Plot: It's spring break, and a quartet of mostly awful college students are driving to LA for a few days of satanic tourism, followed by a stay at Coachella.

Yes. As you can imagine, they're incredibly likable human beings.

Chloe (Modern Family's Sarah Hyland) is the most human of the bunch, while her jerky boyfriend David huffs around acting better than everyone, her cousin Elise channels a halfhearted goth girl who thought The Craft was hardcore, and Elise's boyfriend Seth manages to be worse than all them combined. Offended at the sheer rudeness of an occult store cashier, the gang decides it would be a great idea to follow the practicing satanist on a midnight drive.

Things go great, obviously.

Rude occult store cashier and his pals seem to be taking part in a kind of ritualistic sacrifice of a young woman named Alice, who flees before having her throat cut. The next day, Alice joins the group in their maybe-haunted hotel room, partying like any former satanic cult member/teenage runaway does.

An hour into the film, stuff happens.

My description for Satanic probably sounds like I despised the movie, but by its end, I found a few things to like. Hyland is sympathetic enough to root for, (even if the movie gives her no discerning trait other than "is nicer than her friends") and a few decent jump scares shake things up well. I also couldn't decide if the odd pacing choices were terrible or brilliant.

See, we're used to a certain formula with any teen-centric And Then There Were None-style horror flicks. The fact that Satanic opens with a teaser from the ending (one of my more hated trends in recent horror, most notably used to terrible effect in Don't Breathe) certainly tells us that we're getting something pretty formulaic. But writer Anthony Jaswinski (of the solid Kristy)'s screenplay seems to toy with some of our expectation, spending far more time on the weirdness of Alice's hotel hijinks than the actual horror aftermath. There's something fresh about this in concept, but unfortunately, with such bland characters at its core, it doesn't really do much.

The last 20 minutes or so are spent, rather literally, running in circles around an abandoned warehouse. Characters we've watched for over an hour are dispatched quickly offscreen. Big ideas about hell being a state of mind are introduced, only to culminate in that equaling dismemberment and darkness.

It's...frustrating.

Directed by Jeffrey Hunt (who has a long career in directing for television), Satanic is the kind of movie perfectly suited to the walls of Netflix Instant, where some stoned college kids might come upon it or a teenage slumber party could scream with each other in solidarity or roll their eyes while playing Candy Crush (KIDS!). I'll fully admit that hearing my protagonists whine about missing Coachella brought upon me a certain realization that this kind of genre film would be growing more and more distant from my own sensibilities as the years go by, which was upsetting in its own odd little way.

Maybe more so than a batch of fairly unlikable millennials being sent to hell.

High Points

As someone who has never spent any significant time in LA, I appreciated Satanic's use of the city to establish a very particular environment of sunniness with a strong undercurrent of evil 

Low Points

It's just getting harder and harder to invest in a film about how terrible the young people of today are

Lessons Learned

If (or rather, when) a satanist spits, it's going to be loaded with a lot of phlegm and aggression

LA hotels will charge guests extra to stay in rooms where guests committed suicide

Walking to the house once owned by Sharon Tate requires good leg muscles

Homeless teenage runaway satanists have super shiny hair

The Winning Line

"Why are we not at a taping of Two and a Half Men?" whines David, the Christian alpha male of the group, begging the question: would you rather be sent to hell with your limbs torn off, or be forced to sit through Charlie Sheen doing CBS comedy?

Rent/Bury/Buy

I probably go a lot easier on films like this than a lot of other diehard horror fans, but what can I say? Satanic isn't terrible. It's an "assemble attractive 20somethings for a brutal death in under 90 minutes" kind of movie, and as that surprisingly large subgenre goes, it's better than many. The production values are strong, the cast is able, and the LA scenery is used to fairly interesting effect. I'd never argue for a place for it on your DVD shelf, but if you're doing one of those infamous Netflix Instant movie searches where you find yourself spending more time trying to figure out what to watch than actually watching a movie, this isn't terrible. Not really GOOD, but you know...fine?

Merry Kristy

Back in 2008, Oliver Blackburn brought the world his directorial debut, Donkey Punch. As anyone might guess, such a title prompted a fair amount of attention and reminded me of one of Jeopardy!'s all-time greatest moments.

The film itself was...eh. Looking back at my 2012 review, I found it to be quite well-made, but overall, a rather unpleasant experience that didn't do anything special with its ripe premise. Still, Blackburn's handle on his camera showed some promise, so it seemed worth a try to watch his followup Kristy, now conveniently streaming on Netflix Instant.

Quick Plot: Justine is a hard-working scholarship-and-mess-hall-employed college student planning to spend Thanksgiving weekend on the deserted campus with her wealthier roommate. Wealthier roommate bails at the last minute to join her family in Aspen (as wealthier roommates are prone to do), leaving Justine all alone with the friendly security guard (Keith from Six Feet Under), gate agent, and frozen turkey pot pie.

The lure of Chunky Monkey calls, and Justine hops in her roommate's BMW to the nearby gas station for a fix. Also shopping the aisles is a mysterious hooded young woman who seems uncomfortably interested in Justine, who she prefers to call "Kristy." 

Justine returns to campus a little shaken, but gets utterly trembly when she realizes her gas station pal has followed her home with three masked men and a whole lot of sharp objects. The hunt is on.

Kristy is a very simple film: four killers chase our heroine. While a brief coda of sorts gives us a tiny bit more information about the nature of our villains, this is a cat and mouse game, grounded very specifically in one place, with limited characters to play. 

It works.

With Donkey Punch, Blackburn showed that he could make a decent technical film. Where that film lost me with its script's lack of complexity, Kristy succeeds with an equally sparse story because we're simply caught up in the chase. Justine (as well-played by Haley Bennett) is easy to root for, both for her establishment as a working class underdog and slowly revealed survival skills. She’s smart, she’s quick, and we want to see her win.

High Points 

Even though Kristy is a fairly sparse and simple tale, Blackburn manages to build just enough depth to his characters to make the “hunting” that much sadder

Much credit goes to Francois-Eudes Chanfrault’s score, which has a great pulsating intensity that keeps the tension high

Low Points

While I was fine with the lack of explanation for our killers, I still would have liked a little more differentiation to them. The three silent masked men display no discernible qualities in terms of strength or skill, and it feels like a little opportunity was lost in that area

Lessons Learned

As far as poets go, Blake's a badass

Know your janitor's closets. Love your janitor's closets

Duct tape really does have endless uses

Rent/Bury/Buy

Considering my lukewarm feelings on Donkey Punch, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Kristy. It's hardly unique or innovative, but the overall film moves well, and I was fully invested from start to finish. At just under 90 minutes long, it's a more than decent way to give yourself a few jumps for a nice evening in.