Movie Review: It Follows

David Robert Mitchell (The Myth of the American Sleepover) brings us a deadly new STD with It Follows.

This is the film you show your kids if you want to deter them from having sex.  Everyone who watches horror movies know the old clichés about who's going to get killed off first in the films.  They were popularized in Wes Craven's Scream.  Don't do drugs, don't say "I'll be right back", don't assume the killer is dead, etc.  Well, the killer in this film has a laser focus on just one of the rules....don't have sex.  Jay (Maika Monroe, The Guest) has found herself in a new relationship with a boy named Hugh (Jake Weary, Zombeavers).  After a couple of dates they have sex in the back of his car, like ya do.  Only he finishes the date by knocking her out with chloroform and tying her to a chair.  She wakes up and he explains to her that he has passed something on to her through sex.  "It" will follow her relentlessly until either it kills her, or she passes it on by having sex with someone else.  "It" can take the shape of any person, but it will always be slow and always be walking directly towards her.  She will also be the only one who can see it.  The boy then skips out on her, and it turns out he was using a false name.  Jay, with the help of her friends, tries to track down the guy while also trying to escape the thing following her.

If you are looking for gore and jump scares, you've come to the wrong place.  If you are looking for a well shot, well executed film with a mounting sense of dread and tension, then this is the film for you.  There have been many films trying to give the feel of the old horror films of the 80's lately with varying degrees of success.  This is one of the more successful.  It has a weird aesthetic, in that it is set in modern day (use of a cell phone, and one character has some weird e-reader shaped like a seashell or something), but it completely feels like it could have easily been shot in the late 70's/early 80's.  I mean this in the best possible way.  It feels natural, rather than cheesy and forced.

There is one film in particular that you can see that it borrows heavily from, and that is John Carpenter's Halloween.  The killer moves slowly and yet it seems that the lead can't ever get far enough away.  Like Carpenter, Mitchell uses the space in all of his shots effectively.  He'll have wide shots panning across a crowd of people, or even an empty space, and you're constantly waiting and searching to see if the killer is there somewhere.  There is an establishing opening scene in the film that gives you a sense of just how dangerous "It" is if it gets a hold of it's victim, and that's what makes this work even when there is not much more death to be found in the film.  The other thing that makes it all work that also seems to be influenced by Halloween and countless other early slasher films is the heavy synthesizer soundtrack.  Come for the movie, stay for the score.  Being synth heavy is dated enough that it could have fallen flat on it's face, but it fit in with the aesthetic of this film so well that it just engulfs you and adds to the sense of tension.  It Follows does borrow a lot from Halloween and others, but it does so without feeling like a rip-off.  Mitchell took these influences and injected them into a film with an original and intriguing premise.

The film is not completely without it's faults though.  I thought the actors all did a competent job, but there were no standouts or anyone real memorable. Some of the dialogue was a little hokey, too.  Maybe this is something Mitchell also borrowed from earlier films, but it's something that could have been left in the 70's/80's.  Also, as well as he used the space in his shots there was still work to be done in that department.  Some of his panning shots were a little quick and also went in a complete 360 which I found unnecessary.

It's hard to say if this film is giving any sort of commentary on sex and the dangers of STDs (yeah, "It" follows you if you've had unprotected sex, but you know how you get rid of it.....more unprotected sex).  Whatever the case may be, it's a great little throwback to the horror films of yesteryear with a modern sense to it and an original idea. A solid second feature that has me intrigued to see what Mitchell does next.  Also, crank it up for the score.  Just don't take a date to this film and expect to get lucky any time soon.

Rating: *******--- (7 out of 10) [second run theater]

Memorable quote:

Hugh: Do you guys see that girl?