Kourtney Roy’s feature debut, Kryptic, is a unique and ambitious tale of female self-discovery that is fascinating and perplexing in equal measure.

While driving to her first women’s nature walking group, Kay Hall (Chloe Pirrie) tells herself that she will be outgoing and make new friends. Wearing the group’s trademark pink windbreaker and hiking in the infamous Krypto Peak, where renowned cryptozoologist Barbara Valentine went missing years earlier, things do not go as planned for the shy veterinarian. While roaming a section of the woods, Hall encounters a cryptid, a mysterious creature that some believe to be of alien origin.

Unable to recall much about her life before the interactions, including her name, Hall embarks on a quest to learn more about the creature. Discovering that she bears an uncanny resemblance to Valentine, Hall’s journey has her interact with a wide array of eclectic women, each one bringing her closer to potentially understanding the cryptid and herself.

As Hall meets the various women, each one touching on a facet of her own identity and igniting her inner impulses, Roy’s film has several intriguing things to say about the suppression of identity. The female characters, as eccentric as some might be, are far more grounded and complex than the men in the film, who are only concerned with dominance through sex.

The blending of power and pleasure is where Kryptic earns its title. The more Hall embraces sexuality, the stronger her connection to the creature grows. Incorporating elements of body horror, Roy’s uses sex as a way of taking us inside the cryptid. Hall’s human body is shown sandwiched within slimy organs while experiencing the height of ecstasy. However, the same scene gets played out differently for others who find themselves in the same position.

As one observes the thin line between joy and pain, even Hall herself seems terrified at one moment, logic within Roy’s film becomes murky.

In building a world where myth and monsters intersect on the path to female empowerment, the rules shift as the film goes. One never gets a clear understanding of how the cryptid operates. Is it a succubus, a creature that controls time, a portal for one’s darkest desires, or something else altogether?

This makes some of Hall’s decisions rather head scratching at times. An example of this comes when she confronts a woman, who hooked up with a bartender she had her eyes one, in a bathroom stall. While the scene sheds some light on the cryptid’s abilities, it is not quite clear if the encounter is merely one of power, revenge, pleasure, or all three combined. Things become even more confusing as the audience spend time with some of the supporting characters, especially Valentine’s husband, and revelations come to the surface.

Although there plenty of things to enjoy in this tale of emotional and physical emancipation, Pirrie’s performance is mesmerizing to behold and Roy’s lens gives each new environment a haunting allure, the film raises too many questions it has no interest answering. Just as its title suggest, Kryptic is a tough code to decipher.

Kryptic screened as part of the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival.