It is the rare exception for a modern horror film to build a genuine sense of dread and foreboding. It Follows is one of those rare exceptions.
One of the best-known slasher film tropes is that those who engage in casual sex are marked for death. David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows takes that cliché one step further. For one partner, having sex passes a mark of death onto the other. The recipient has to have sex with someone else or he or she will be pursued by a murderous entity who will stop at nothing unless the mark is passed to someone else. This entity isn’t a killer in a mask. It’s an apparition that only the marked person can see and it can take the form of anyone.
College student Jay Height (Maika Monroe) has a date with Hugh (Jay Weary). As they prepare to watch a movie, Hugh sees a person that Jay can’t see. It freaks him out and they leave the theater. On their next date, Jay and Hugh have sex in his car. Hugh subdues Jay with a rag full of chloroform. When Jay awakens, she’s tied to a wheelchair in an old factory.
Hugh explains that he doesn’t want to hurt her but he is being pursued by something and the only way to get rid of it is to have sex with someone. He tells her to be aware of her surroundings and that if she is killed by this thing, it will come after him. Suddenly, a naked woman approaches from out of the shadows. Hugh asks Jay if she can see her. She does. The two escape and Hugh unceremoniously drops Jay off in front of her house and takes off.
The next day, Jay is shaken and scared. She reports the assault to the police but they can’t find Hugh or the woman. She tries to move on, thinking that the story Hugh has told her is simply that: a story. But when she is pursued by an old woman at school that no one else can see, she’s convinced that Hugh was telling the truth.
It is the rare exception for a modern horror film to build a genuine sense of dread and foreboding. It Follows is one of those rare exceptions. Thanks to a marvelously retro-sounding musical score by Disasterpeace and excellent cinematography by Mike Gioulakis, It Follows creates a claustrophobic atmosphere. I was constantly looking over characters’ shoulders for the entity.
For a movie built on the subversion of a trope, the script deftly avoids other standard issue horror movie pitfalls. Maika Monroe’s performance as Jay conveys terror, anxiety and stress rather than a lobotomy. The rest of the characters aren’t as vividly depicted but they are fleshed-out enough to react like real people rather than idiots when confronted with such an outlandish situation.
I’ve seen many an online essay about the meaning of the film’s depiction of sex as a way of passing on a murderous entity. Getting into that is, honestly, beyond my pay grade. But I will say that the film never divulges a definitive answer as to where the entity originated or what it hopes to gain by murdering people. And, for me, that mystery is what makes It Follows so fun and scary.
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
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