Warning: Some Spoilers Ahead
From the beginning of
writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s It
Follows- which opens with a tracking shot following a frightened teenage
girl as she’s running from an unseen...someone?...something?- you know you’re in very
capable hands. I was genuinely hooked from the beginning; and while I wish
the film explored its concept a further and threw a few more
narrative curveballs, as a piece of filmmaking It Follows is well worth any discerning horror movie fan’s time.
Our main character is 19-year old
Jay (The Guest’s Maika Monroe). She
has been dating Hugh (Jake Weary). After they have sex one
night, Hugh chloroforms Jay. Hugh then reveals he has passed on to her a
curse: an entity that can take the form of anyone- whether it’s someone you
know or a complete stranger- which only someone with the curse can see. The
entity will keep following you until it kills you. Jay eventually enlists the help of
her sister- Kelly (Lili Sepe)- and her friends- Paul (Keir Gilchrist), Yara
(Olivia Luccardi), and Greg (Daniel Zovatto)- to help her defeat the entity before it kills her.
This is pretty much all you need
to know about the premise of the film. It’s the type of basic set up which burrows in to your psyche. If Psycho
and Jaws made you afraid of having a
shower and going in to the water, respectively, then It Follows will make you paranoid of the people around you. In
other horror movies revealing what the evil force looks like early on ruins a film's mystery; but since
the entity takes a different form each time out (many very grotesque) there’s an inherent
suspense of not knowing what it’ll look like next. Mitchell plays on this un-surety,
notably in a later scene with Hugh- whose real name turns out to be Jeff
Redmond-which sets up the potential of the entity being there (Jake
still isn’t rid of it) - but it’s just a false alarm.
By giving the entity a different
form each time out enhances the mystery of what it actually is. In another film
we would get more of a back-story concerning the history of what this
creature/demon/etc. is. But Mitchell isn't interested in exploring a dense
mythology for this entity. He’s more concerned with how the entity works on a
metaphorical level. The fact that the curse is passed on sexually makes the
entity something like a sexually transmitted disease. And like a STD, passing
it on doesn’t mean you’re free of it. The film can be read as a darkly comic
cautionary tale for safe sex.
Besides the STD metaphor, I feel the film both reinforces and subverts the teen
horror tropes- explained by Jamie Kennedy’s character in the original Scream- of the girl who has sex getting killed and the “final girl” or heroine typically being
the pure virgin. In It Follows having
sex can get you killed but Jay isn’t a secondary character who gets killed after having sex she’s the main character.
Moreover Jay isn’t demonized for having sex nor portrayed stereotypically as a “dirty
girl.” For Mitchell, Jay is no less “pure” for having sex.
Monroe was good in The Guest but I think she was
overshadowed by Dan Stevens’ performance. In It Follows, allowed to take centre stage, Monroe really shines. It’s
not a flashy performance but she has a laid back and natural charisma which
endears Jay to us. And Mitchell’s camera loves her. On a side note, during an
early scene I thought to myself that all she needed was head band and she’d be
a great Gwen Stacy for the next Spider-Man series.
I think old-school horror fans
will take a certain amount of pleasure from It
Follows, particularly admirers of legendary director John Carpenter’s aesthetic.
While it’s risky for an up and coming filmmaker to homage an iconic director’s
work (“You’re no John Carpenter”), I think Mitchell is able to pay tribute to
Carpenter’s (and other filmmakers' work) while still crafting something that’s distinctly
his own. Despite this only being Mitchell’s sophomore effort he’s an extremely
confident filmmaker, with a firm grasp of pacing, camera movement and
atmosphere. While he does provide some jump moments, he doesn’t rely on them
too much; instead he focuses on images that are truly and deeply frightening.
There are moments in this film that I think will unsettle even the most
seasoned horror fan.
While It Follows is very stylish film, it’s never so stylish that it
overalls the film. In fact, the mood of the film is often very subdued.
Mitchell allows character moments to breathe. While I feel the characters needed
to be developed a little more Mitchell's characters are still distinctly human
and not merely fodder for the entity. Even Jay isn’t completely vilified- he’s
as much a victim as anyone. The heart of the film- character-wise- is the
relationship between Jay and Paul. He clearly likes her and we learn they
shared a kiss when they were younger. They have a few nice scenes together,
particularly the conversation they have before the horror really kicks in to gear.
I do wish the film travelled a
different narrative path as it headed towards its climax. Instead it settles in to a more conventional
type of climax. I also wish the film’s ending had a little more punch- though I
understand that Mitchell likely wanted a subdued final note. Despite
these few disappointments, on its own terms, It Follows is an absorbing and effectively spooky horror film, full
of unsettling and beautiful images- as well as a star-making performance by
Monroe. If you’re a horror fan,
seek this one out.
