Review of It Follows (2015) by Teaguewd — 06 Apr 2015

This was an interesting film, and I definitely has a lot of fun watching it. Without any foreknowledge other than a few tv spots I had seen late at night(we went to see it on a whim after seeing that it was playing) I was exciting to see the poster outside of the small art cinema was a paint-style homage to late 70s/early 80s slasher films. It was no surprise that this was only the tip of the iceberg of these references in the film, which above all creates and maintains an atmosphere that felt like a low-fi, incandescent version of the visual mood of the era’s films, even incorporating an element of timeless mise-en-scene that intensifies its creepiness. In fact, theres very little mention of time(or even temporal continuity editing throughout the film), all the while slowly revealing that the reason for much of this midwestern mise-en-cene is that the film is set in suburban Detroit in the late Summer(something that with my regional prejudices seemed to be a horrific revelation in and of itself) .

The premise is interesting and unique rather than profoundly innovative; it succeeds in creating a running-length-long sense of dread because of the foreboding visual contingency it involves(the premise is revealed very early on to maximize this dread), yet still is subject to the typical implausibilities of these types of movies, which at times creates a feel akin to something like a college-aged version of the Goonies. Either way, we can perhaps be assured of the film’s plausibility relative to other recent fare, at least within the confines of a fully-self ware horror cinema, due to the premise’s particularly intimate relationship with sex.

As with all slasher films (and horror films in general) It Follows involves a formulaic premise, but here it cuts-to-the-chase with regard to our teenaged victims being punished for their promiscuity, having the killer-entity engaged in pursuit as a direct result as coitus, quite literally such that its wrath is transmitted from person to person via sex, like an unavoidable STI. Because of this, we are able to focus less on what the killer is(it morphs amongst various human facades), and far more on how it operates in space. This departure from the typical slasher formula serves to bend the suspense it delivers, from something that dwells on the unknown to something that guarantees conflict, the suspense coming from just how the next encounter will occur(a slight but refreshing twist on the formula).

All things considered, the film’s premise allows for some terribly haunting conceptualizations derived from its choking of the diegetic spatial plane. We are not only given a heightened pretense for scanning the image for a threat (in literally every shot, the way this is filmed), but we assimilate to the character’s three-dimensional world, reinforcing the suspense that keep's the viewer engaged. At times overly simple and conventional camerawork ease up the tense feeling, but moments of brilliance quickly re-instill the horror for a pretty high-paced flick.

In essence, this is an exciting film(certainly worth seeing) that feels a bit like Halloween, though not quite as scary, nor near as gory, The Ring with more color, and an almost art film-esque “frantic wandering” in place of the investigative plot. It helps that the female stars are attractive new faces, who bring a pretty naturalistic(although sometimes lacking in emotional range- this may be due to lackluster writing in places) feel to their scenes together. Either way, the overall style is unique and along with an unusual tonally-motivated soundtrack, its translates the horror-film-mood at the confluence of a mushroom trip and a torture chamber, which is actually pretty cool.