Review of It Follows (2015) by Dan P — 07 Dec 2016

OK, I kind of wanted to see this movie based on all the hype, but still refrained. Then it was recommended by someone's opinion I trust, so I gave it a shot.

I will start off by saying that I did like it to an extent. It had a great early day horror movie vibe to it, mixed with an eighties vibe, which is cool and I appreciate. But there are so many odd choices the writer-director made.

Number one, a lot of the lighting throughout the movie looks like exactly what it is; A single or multiple studio lighting positioned in such a way as to light the centerpiece or focus of the scene. There are several scenes where you can clearly see the downward cone shape of the light coming from the fixture, as if an alien spaceship were above about to abduct whatever was being lighted. I even think during one scene I saw one of the lights dim or go out as a car drove away.

The dialogue isn't natural, for most of the movie. There are just certain questions that would be asked in certain circumstances that would demand an answer, but no one in the movie ask the right questions nor gives the right answer if, by chance the right question were posed. Secondly, the actors weren't the greatest, the conversations weren't as fluid or natural as typical conversation. A lot of delays between the actors responding to a simple hey,or how's it going.

The kids in this movie also seem to be lacking parents or the help of police officers, for 95% of the movie.

(Spoiler...kind of).

Finally, so I don't ramble on and on, The end was odd. At the end the kids form a plan to try and defeat the threat but the logic behind why they think it would work was never stated and the plan was never followed through with, even though they had AMPLE! opportunity to follow through with the plan. AMPLE OPPORTUNITY!

As I'm sitting here writing this, I think I just realized why I don't usually watch horror movies, because in order for most horror movies to work, the characters need to be kind of stupid, otherwise they would never give the threat a run for their money long enough for us to enjoy the movie and they'd escape the danger somewhat quickly.

Having said all that, I actually did enjoy the movie for casual viewing when I had nothing better to do, but I'd be unlikely to recommend it or watch it again ever.