Review of It Follows (2015) by Jon M — 29 Aug 2015

This movie was a fail for me. Recently, Quentin T. praised the creator of this movie for the concept yet criticized him for failing to "take it there" and I would sadly have to agree. I thought the concept was awesome; that's why I was so eager to see it.

However, the execution was just.not.there. There are no excuses even with it being a low budget horror flick. John Carpenter Halloween. I feel as though issues like this start with the writing. First off, on a basic level I didn't give a f about any of the characters.

Wrong note to start off any story and not spend at least a brief amount of time developing the characters well enough for the audience to be invested. Second, the "supernatural entity" just wasn't relentless enough for me.

I'm not even talking about kills here, or even necessarily explaining what it thing is (sometimes mystery is good, leave it to the imagination), it's just about creating tension and having an element of shock value to keep people on their seats.

That wasn't there for me at ALL, as I spent most of the movie more interested in what was going on on Instagram. Maybe it would have been better had I seen it on the big screen or alone in the dark.

At any rate, this one goes down as a "Cabin In the Woods" for me, a movie critics and horror fans love for the sake of getting something "different", but the substance is lacking and the scares were almost non-existent.

For example (slight spoiler), there was a most ridiculous part in the beginning when the main character first deals with her curse in the classroom and she sees some geriatric old person in a hospital gown coming for her; she runs into the hallway and is terrified, but me I'm like really? You silly girl, you can easily just knock grandma out lol.

..I get what they were going for (vision - Exorcist 3), but the set up was all wrong. If this entity can take on whatever form it wishes to, why wouldn't it at least start off as something more intimidating to make her fear more believable? Overall, GREAT concept along the lines of a movie like Fallen, good camera shots and use of atmosphere, but subpar story and execution.