Movie Review: It Follows

 

 
Film Info
 

Release Date: March 13, 2015
 
MPAA Rating: R
 
Starring: Maika Monroe, Jake Weary, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi
 
Director: David Robert Mitchell
 
Writer: David Robert Mitchell
 
Producer: Rebecca Green, Laura D. Smith, David Robert Mitchell, David Kaplan, Erik Rommesmo
 
Distributor: RADiUS-TWC
 
External Info: https://www.facebook.com/ItFollows
 
Genre:
 
Critic Rating
 
 
 
 
 


User Rating
2 total ratings

 

What We Liked


The chilling subversion of many of the basic “rules” of horror moviemaking

What We Didn't Like


A passable ending that doesn’t live up to its remarkable setup


1
Posted  March 20, 2015 by

 
Read the Full Review
 
 

Horror is the most formulaic genre in cinema – or, perhaps, simply the one in which filmmakers seem most willing to rely on formula. The genre often descends into a spiral of derivative shtick, with the occasional good or great film spawning ten knockoffs that then give rise to another fifty of their own imitators. See Paranormal Activity, a novel It Followsand creepy film (a Blair Witch Project copycat itself? perhaps), which has jumpstarted the genre’s most recent god-awful trend: found-footage horror. But even Paranormal Activity stood by certain rules of its genre, a condition the new horror flick It Follows renders itself blissfully, thrillingly free of.

At least for the first two-thirds or so. The film opens with a gripping sequence, horrifying in its simplicity. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell places his camera in the middle of a suburban street and simply, well, follows in a 360-degree pivot as a terrified young woman runs out of her house, into the street and back into the house before fleeing in her car. We don’t see whatever seems to be pursuing her, nor do we see how it brings about her grisly fate moments later. But we soon learn the specifics from Hugh (Jake Weary), a young man of questionable morals, after he has sex for the first time with our heroine, Jay (Maika Monroe). Hugh has a sexually transmitted curse of sorts, causing its most recent victim to be pursued by a slow-moving, malignant entity that can take the form of any human, either anonymous or dear to the victim. If it succeeds in killing its prey – as it did Hugh’s last sexual conquest, the woman in the prologue – it moves back down the line to the last person afflicted. Hugh explains that he’s only passing the curse on again to Jay to save himself. Helpfully, he adds that she should do the same as quickly as possible.

It’s a clever concept, a novel twist on the perennial horror subject material of teens, sex and death. But the real subversive brilliance lies in Mitchell’s presentation. First, Mitchell defies the horror dictum that claustrophobia equals terror. Starting from that chilling opening sequence, Mitchell keeps his characters at a distance, mostly in wide or medium shots. His boogeyman doesn’t work by that old trick where you follow your terrified protagonist closely, revealing suddenly that – BOOGA! – the bad guy’s right behind her. The creeping entity that pursues Jay doesn’t need to sneak up on you. It’ll get to you one way or another. Besides serving the peculiar nature of his antagonist, Mitchell’s wide-open compositions convey his characters’ alienation with crushing beauty. The young leads cling to each other in a bleak, often creepily uninhabited adult world that’s not as promising as they dreamed.

This horrific anti-claustrophobia is Mitchell’s most inspired subversion, but it’s certainly not the only one. Forget the idea that a horror villain should look cool, or at least unique. It could take the form of a character we know, or some random extra in the background. It FollowsIt could be anyone, and the constant possibility of its presence shoots a fresh kind of fear into the film. Mitchell also has almost no truck with the horror convention of jump scares. He’d rather slowly make your hairs stand on end for minutes at a time than waste the scare on a single moment. He goes for a bit of a 1980s vibe with a terrific synth score by Disasterpeace, but doesn’t wallow in it the way recent nostalgia trips like The Guest have. There’s very little gore. Thoughtful performances! A self-possessed heroine who makes compelling choices for herself! Are we sure this is even a horror movie?

The big letdown of It Follows is that it’s not sure quite where to go with this setup. The denouement is quietly chilling, but it’s preceded by a fairly unremarkable showdown set piece. It’s entertaining enough, but it doesn’t deliver on the promise of the hour and a quarter of excellence that sets it up. But It Follows is only Mitchell’s second feature, and it’s still remarkable by any metric. It’ll be fascinating to see what Mitchell applies his considerable talent to next. And in the meantime, for once I actually wouldn’t mind seeing a few imitators adopt Mitchell’s unorthodox approach into their boring little horror rulebooks.

Patrick Dunn

Patrick Dunn

Patrick Dunn is an Ann Arbor-based professional freelance writer. His work appears regularly in the Detroit News, the Ann Arbor Observer, Hour Detroit, Metromode and My Ford Magazine. He is the senior writer at the Washtenaw County-focused online development magazine Concentrate. He appears every Friday morning at 8:40 a.m. to discuss metro-area goings-on, movies and more on Martin Bandyke's morning show on 107.1 FM in Ann Arbor.
Patrick Dunn
Patrick Dunn
Patrick Dunn

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