Writer(s): Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, and Lili Sepe
It truly speaks to the sad state of the modern horror film
(and probably many other genres), just how little you have to tweak the formula
to make a scary film that is perceived as original. It’s even more embarrassing to the genre when
said tweak simply involves having characters who aren’t complete idiots. On its surface, It Follows has the very
same trappings of a dozen similar films before it: The good-looking, young, college-aged
character who is marked for death after having sex with her boyfriend (sounds
like every slasher movie ever made); but it subverts the formula, taking what
is generally one small scene in a typical movie, and turning it into the film’s
whole focus. What follows is
surprisingly smart, stylish, and one of the best horror releases I’ve
seen in a long time.
Jay (Maika Monroe) is the aforementioned “college-aged
character”, a 19-year-old who, aside from a sister and a couple close friends,
doesn’t seem to have much else going on.
Well, except for a little fling she’s having with Hugh (Jake Weary), an
average-looking guy who seems to be one of the few things she enjoys to be
around, outside of her tight-knit circle.
Her sister asks if they’ve had sex yet, and Jay reveals that they have
not, but that she wants to; before you know it, on their very next date,
they’re getting hot and heavy in his car.
But things don’t turn out for Jay the way she wants them
to. While she’s caught up in the moment,
waxing poetic about what she wants for her future, Hugh chloroforms her,
rendering her unconscious after a brief struggle. When she wakes up, she’s tied to a wheelchair
in an abandoned parking garage, while Hugh informs her that, through their
intercourse, he has passed something on to her.
It’s not a disease, at least, not in the form of a physical
manifestation on the skin, but it’s a mental one; at random moments throughout
the day, random people will attempt to kill her. Chances are she will not know who they are,
and who they are is wisely never explored or explained. But they will stalk her, slowly walking
toward her from a great distance away, and if they get a hold of her, she dies. The catch?
No one else can see them but her.
The only way to pass it on is to have sex with someone else, which will
then pass on the “curse” to them.
But as Hugh explains it, simply passing it on does not mean
that you’re out of the woods: If the
person you pass it on to is killed by the random entities, then they start
coming back for you until you pass it on again.
In other words, Hugh isn’t quite out of the woods yet; although he’s
safe for now, if Jay is to be killed, then it will set its sights back on Hugh. All of a sudden, herpes isn’t sounding so bad
after all!
While the setup itself is pretty creepy, it’s the writing
and acting that take It Follows immediately to the upper echelon of horror
films. Even though her sister and
friends cannot see what’s following her, they quickly grow to believe Jay,
coming together to show their support; they stay the night with her, they try
to keep her entertained, and they refuse to leave her side. This might sound like nothing more than a
corny formality to the uninitiated genre fan, but it’s actually one of the
golden rules from the Horror Film Playbook (and also, common sense): A scary movie is infinitely more effective
when you have characters you care for. Of course, we sympathize with Jay the
most, given her unique (and terrifying) situation, but all of them are
inherently likable people; once we are emotionally invested in them and their
situation, it makes the terror scenes resonate a whole lot more. What would be at stake if we didn’t care who
lived and who died?
To that end, there seem to be ongoing debates as to whether
or not It Follows is scary or not, with that being the sole basis on which it
seems to be judged. For the record, I
did not think it was scary in a traditional sense (my heart never started
racing, nor did my palms start sweating, nor was I frozen in fear, nor did I
shift uncontrollably in my seat), but can’t a movie still manage to be entertaining? Just because it didn’t terrify me doesn’t
mean I wasn’t completely enthralled in the story, wondering how it would play
out, and how everything would be resolved.
It’s simply gripping cinema, no matter how you look at it, and the whole
100 minutes flew by before I even knew what had hit me.
Though the hits far outweigh the misses, there was a minor
qualm I had. The biggest fault I have
with the movie is that it doesn’t really explore its idea a whole lot. It teases us with some ideas—for example, an
“infected” character tosses about the idea of having sex with a prostitute—but
then the idea is discarded just as soon as it is brought up. I get where the movie was going with this
whole idea, and what its endgame was, which is evidenced by its cheesy ending,
but come on: No girl, let alone one as
attractive as Jay, would have any problems getting rid of this problem, and it
doesn’t feel like she ever really explores her options all that much. I’m not saying this just so we can watch her
whore herself out, but come on…this isn’t just some minor STD that can be
covered up or explained away. This is
literally a matter of life or death, not to mention something that would be
inexplicably terrifying to experience once, let alone all the time, yet there
doesn’t seem to be an equally increasing urgency on her part to think of ways
to permanently get rid of it.
Still, that did nothing to prevent me from enjoying this
movie immensely. It Follows might not
have been the scary film that it was hyped up to be, but it’s every bit as
creative, with an energy and atmosphere all its own. The level of the writing and performances are
often so good, they feel like they’re out of place in a horror film; but that’s
solely the fault of a genre that seems to have become content with lazy
mediocrity, where ideas are recycled and the lowest-common-denominator is
catered to. It Follows is that
seemingly rare example of what happens when people with talent come together
and make a horror movie. And man, is it
exhilarating.
RECAP: Great writing, excellent performances, and a creepy
atmosphere come together to make one of the best recent horror movies I’ve
seen. While I wouldn’t consider the
movie “scary”, it certainly held my attention from the first frame to the last;
and like most classic horror films, it does it without a lot of gore. If you’re a genre fan who’s on the fence
about seeing it, do yourself a favor and forget everything you’ve read about
it, including this review, and go in with an open mind. You won’t be disappointed.
RATING: 9/10
TRAILER
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