It Follows

"It Follows"

"As Reported by Dollyforme"

Now…………….how is this for a creepy movie title: IT FOLLOWS…. Saw this horror spectacular at the dollar theatre next to my house and went back for a second viewing.

I heard that this flick is a real gem……and it is – very much so. That is, a real gem in a very creepy, horrific way. In this movie, you can just feel the deep love new-school horror filmmakers have for old-school horror movie aesthetics – it is well-and-truly on show in writer/director David Robert Mitchell's ripping little suburban scarefest.

With its widescreen streetshots and in-camera shocks echoing John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween, the tale tells of a lethal curse, a death spirit that walks slowly towards you until it gets you.

It's appearance is typically that of a regular person, either a friend or a stranger.

The only way to shake it off - apart from running - is to have sex with somebody. But then that person is afflicted and must do the same thing, and so on.

It Follows, the second feature from writer-director David Robert Mitchell (who previously made 2010’s The Myth of the American Sleepover), takes this idea and does inventive–sometimes ingenious–things with it. Gone is much of the sexism. Gone is the overuse of gore—the body count is much lower than the average slasher flick.

The film’s monster is essentially a giant horror trope, but it’s also conceived in a way that allows these clichés to be subverted, transforming everything we’ve been taught to think of as safe havens—open spaces, daylight, loved ones—into being more dangerous and terrifying than any of the tropes themselves.

The film follows Jay (Maika Monroe), a college student, who, after sleeping with a guy she’s dating, is informed by him that the encounter has passed on a curse. An entity will follow her, always walking slowly but never stopping until it either kills her or she has sex again, passing along the curse to someone else—until that person is killed and the curse returns to her.

Even on its own kooky, spooky terms there are lapses in plausibility here that even the most forgiving horror fan will spot, but they are more than compensated by the film's sheer number of quality shocks.

You’re being chased by a silent killer who makes up for a slow-pace with persistence. This is the heart of what a slasher movie is, and while they are often maligned for basing their terror in bloodshed and a multitude of kills, as well as the sexism that plagues many films in the genre, they are conceptually effective when viewed through this lens.
The entity isn’t explained much. We don’t know where it came from or how far back the curse goes, but overanalyzing it would be missing the point. The creature exists so that they can compile traits of every horror villain imaginable. It walks slowly and targets people who have sex, much like slasher villains, and it’s also a shape-shifter and incapable of being seen by those unaffected by the curse, like more supernatural monsters.

The sense of dread this story fashions makes It Follows creepier than a typical meta horror movie. It’s also exhausting. Mitchell uses space and perspective to create unease and, at times, it feels like you’re the one being followed. You can easily place yourself in Jay’s position, which is odd, because she’s the character who is least like a blank slate. Since she’s the only one truly at risk (at least until she sleeps with someone), too much of the focus is put on her, with the other characters remaining underdeveloped for much of the running time. In fact, treating the characters as expendable is one of the few clichés of the genre that It Follows doesn’t give its own spin on. Instead, it serves it straight.

Unlike last year’s fantastic The Babadook, It Follows isn’t likely to be enjoyed by people who don’t like horror. That film utilized many dramatic and character-based elements that are rarely on display here, and this isn’t quite as good a film overall. But if you’re a fan of horror movies when they’re done well, then this is one of the best you’re going to see this year.

It also gets one thing right that The Babadook got wrong: the ending. No jump scares, no tonal shifts, no gore. Just a relentless doom tailing you that will never stop.

As well as his fine eye for editing and use of negative space, Mitchell deserves kudos for staging some of the films scariest moments in broad daylight. A real horror gem, this.

Well-worth paying full price to see, best horror movie released this year so far.