Review of It Follows (2015) by Gabriella T — 28 Sep 2015

I'm not a fan of horror movies. That's not the genres fault, but rather the fault of the people making them, as it seems to attract nothing but amateur talent with nothing substantial to offer. They're usually poorly acted, poorly written, and rely on either an excessive amount of gore, or lots of cheap jump-scares. This is the land of found-footage, human centipedes and recycled storylines.

Then along comes "It Follows" which bucks all of these trends - to terrifying effect.

I'm not easily frightened. The last (and probably only) film to genuinely creep me out was Banshee Chapter, thanks to its effective combination of number stations and "never show the monster for more than a fraction of a second" scares - but they couldn't sustain that for the whole movie. That said, it left a lasting impression.

It Follows left a lasting impression for different reasons. I'm not scarred by it (although my other half appears to be irreparably altered forever, and still hasn't recovered), but I do have enormous respect for everything about it.

The entire film has a dream-like quality about it. There's some purposefully slow and muted pacing which lulls you into a fairly comfortable place, but then perverts this with odd anachronisms and settings. You never quite know what era the film is set in. There are 60's era TV sets, 70's fashion cues, and e-readers made to look like clamshell make-up mirrors. None of this makes sense or goes together, and the effect is that of slight un-ease.

The setting, similarly, is unusual - with suburban ghost towns of Detroit being used to great effect to make you feel both familiarity and isolation at the same time. All of this gives the entire film a slightly "other-worldly" feel, like you're observing a dream.

It makes sense then, that the premise of the "monster" in this movie is something straight out of common nightmare tropes, and that something so very basic and vague is made so effective.

You are constantly pursued by a figure. They always move at walking pace. They always movie in a straight line towards you. There is only one of them. They can appear as anyone. Only you (or someone previously afflicted by it) can see them. They can't move through walls, but they can kick down doors and smash windows, and hurt anyone that gets in the way. The only way to get rid of them is to pass the curse on to someone else (via sexual intercourse), at which point the figure starts following them instead. When the figure catches up with whoever is currently "it", it kills them violently. It then begins to pursue the previously cursed individual.

This brilliantly simple premise is kind of brilliant. You really don't need anything more complicated than this to make something scary - just a person only you can see, constantly and relentlessly walking towards you, like your own personal zombie.

There is some excellent camera work in this movie. The director doesn't appear to put a single foot wrong throughout, and we get treated to some truly special shots that say massive amounts without the need for dialogue. A particular favourite of mine is one segment where the camera is consistently rotating in one direction on a point, completing a number of full rotations. In this single continuous shot, it captures not only the actions of the main characters, but also the unseen persuer (always moving directly towards the camera throughout the film) like a very tense game of "What's the time Mr Wolf". Brilliant stuff!

This film will probably give most people nightmares, but if you're into that sort of thing (or you can handle it), this movie is a real treat, and should be given the benefit of the doubt.