'It Follows' (2014)
9.1/10
Before I get into what I loved so passionately about this movie, I'll share the plot in its entirety. I'm a big stickler when it comes to horror films, so anything I rate over 8.0 I consider to be great. We'll get into why later. First an outline of what happens in 'It Follows'...
Annie Marshall runs out of her house in sleepwear and red stiletto heels, seemingly being pursued by something we cannot see, but denying that she needs help to onlookers. She runs back into her house, then runs out with car keys and drives away. The camera never cuts; it's all one beautifully long wide shot. That night, Annie Marshall sits alone on a beach, frightened, and tells her father over the phone that she loves him. In the morning, her mutilated corpse remains on the beach in a shocking and provocative manner. What an opening!
Carefree university student Jay Height (Maika Monroe) goes on a date with her new boyfriend, Hugh. At a movie theater, Hugh points out a girl in a yellow dress. When Jay says she cannot see the girl, Hugh is unnerved and asks that they leave. On another date, Hugh and Jay have sex for the first time in his car, but afterwards, he incapacitates Jay with chloroform. She wakes up tied to a wheelchair, where Hugh explains that she will be pursued by a single entity that only they can see, but which can take the appearance of any person. It only moves at a walking pace, but will always knows where she is and will be approaching at all times. If it catches Jay, it will kill her and pursue the previous person to have passed it on: Hugh. Hugh waits until a naked woman slowly approaches them to prove Jay is being followed, then urges Jay to have sex with another person soon. He drives Jay home and flees. The next day, the police cannot find the naked woman or Hugh, who was living under a false identity.
At school, Jay sees an old woman in a hospital gown walking towards her, invisible to others, and flees. Jay's sister Kelly and her longtime friends Paul and Yara spend the night in Jay and Kelly's house to support Jay. Someone smashes a window; Paul investigates but sees no one. Jay then sees a disheveled, urinating, half-naked woman walking toward her and runs upstairs to the others, who cannot see the entity. When a tall man enters the bedroom, Jay flees the house by bike. With the help of their neighbor, Greg, the group discovers Hugh's real name, Jeff Redmond, and find his home. Jeff explains that the entity began pursuing him after a one-night stand, and that the only option is to sleep with someone else and implore them to do the same. He recommends that Jay drive to a distant location to buy herself time to think.
Greg drives Jay, Kelly, Yara, and Paul to his family's lake house, and teaches Jay to shoot a revolver. The next day on the lakefront, while Greg leaves to pee, the entity arrives in the form of Yara and attacks Jay from behind by grabbing her hair, which is witnessed by her friends. Paul saves Jay by striking the entity with a chair and is violently knocked away by it. Fleeing to the boathouse, Jay shoots the entity, but it recovers and continues pursuing. She flees in Greg's car and crashes, then wakes up in a hospital with a broken arm. To buy herself time, Jay has sex with Greg in the hospital. Greg denies the existence of the entity to Jay's friends. Days later, back home, Jay sees the entity in the form of Greg walking towards Greg's house. It smashes a window and enters. Jay runs into the house and finds the entity in the form of Greg's half-naked mother attacking and killing Greg. Jay flees by car and spends the night outdoors. On a beach, Jay sees three young men on a boat. She partially undresses and walks into the water. Back home, Paul, willing to take the risk, asks Jay to pass it on to him, but she refuses.
The group plans a last ditch effort to kill the entity by luring it into a swimming pool and dropping electrical devices into the water. Jay waits in the pool until the entity arrives with the appearance of her father. Instead of entering the pool, it throws the devices at her. Firing at an invisible target, Paul accidentally wounds Yara but shoots the entity twice before it falls into the pool. As it pulls Jay underwater, Paul shoots it again, and Jay escapes. When Paul asks if it is dead, Jay approaches the pool and silently watches as it fills with blood.
Back at Jay's house, Jay and Paul have sex. That night, Paul drives through town, passing prostitutes. Yara recovers at a hospital. Later, Jay and Paul walk down the street holding hands, as a figure walks behind them. Will they live? We will never know, but such is the theme of the film: impending doom that is inescapable.
On top of the aesthetic choices David Robert Mitchell put forth here, it's also his ability to embrace the slow-burn, starting out with a shocking death, but then taking a large amount of time to lay down character development and properly set up the plot. This time gives the viewer endless time to look over every frame of film. There are so many beautiful wide angle shots, long takes with no cuts, huge depth of field and 360 degree panning shots to show the meticulous framing...sometimes revealing figures, far at first, but slowly encroaching as the camera comes back around. Mitchell seemingly has learned a lot from John Carpenter's use of empty spaces in films like 'Halloween' and 'The Thing.' Because the groundwork is laid so properly, wide shots with nothing much happening even stimulate your fear. Many horror films these days opt for rapid-fire editing because of their lack of shot preparation...ending up looking like a jumbled up music video at times. That is certainly not the case in 'It Follows.' Even the setting of Detroit adds to this impending dread of abandoned, empty space. Detroit itself is a city that seems abandoned by modern times; plagued with empty houses lining the streets. This really helps the atmosphere of impending dread and looming threat in my opinion. It's sad but beautiful.
Maika Monroe as 'Jay' is the star of this film. Her portrayal of the damsel in distress here is so incredible. She is scared and helpless in such a way that rivals some of the best 'final girls' in my opinion. Her tears, screams, and genuine uneasiness is felt in every mannerism put forth in 'It Follows.' Is she crazy? What is happening to her? Why can't anyone else see these 'people' following her? It's truly frightening, and Monroe is able to convey this fear so well. Just an incredible performance. She is utterly alone, despite having help from friends...they can't help her. This pseudo-loneliness is another aspect of the film I love; you really feel for Monroe. I'm really happy she has found a home in horror films since this released ('The Guest' and 'Watcher' come to mind).
The friend group is another aspect of the film I really enjoyed. It makes me think of 'The Monster Squad' or the group of friends in Netflix's 'Stranger Things' in a weird way. I love the comradery between them all, and their willingness to help despite not knowing what is truly going on is something I've always loved put into films. It is so frustrating that they want to help Monroe, but simply can't! I particularly enjoy the pool scene, when they are battling the entity coming for Monroe, while not being able to see it...wow what a scene! They finally get to kind of 'see' it and fight the best they can. The blood filling the pool from that angle above Monroe's head is so beautiful to me, and a lovely way of cementing the group's friendship.
The idea of knowing something is coming to kill you and it cannot be stopped, merely slowed down, is just terrifying. It's like procrastinating death in a sense...even passing this 'curse' onto someone else seemingly only prolongs the inevitable. Eventually it will kill those people and come back for you. But even then, you are essentially passing on this certain death to someone else by sleeping with them...how could you live with yourself? There is no escaping it. The unrelenting, slowly encroaching death in any form. Truly nightmarish to live with this fear. You can interpret this idea anyway you wish: you could even say it is symbolic of STDs or HIV/AIDS. The main point is that there is no real solution to this nightmare. Monroe opens herself up to danger through sex, which is also the one way she could temporarily free herself from that danger...a true paradox. "We're here for a good time, not a long time" comes to mind in this scenario haha. You don't always need those gimmicky jump scares when even your own mortality is scary. This fear is also heightened by the 'IT' constantly changing form; it can be a dead relative, a random girl on the street, or just any Joe-Shmo. How do you know who is who? Are you guys seeing that person? Scary stuff. It's also nice to not entirely know what this curse is or why it's killing people. Leaving it up to the viewer's imagination is great and only heightens the fear in my opinion.
The score by Rich Vreeland, affectionately know here as DISASTERPEACE, is a masterpiece. It perfectly encapsulates everything happening at every moment. I cannot properly convey how amazing it is to me. The synthesizer roars when something is about to happen, every character seemingly has his/her own theme songs as they traverse the film. The reverb shakes the room when you watch the film. It definitely harkens back to synth scores of older 80s horror films, particularly those of Carpenter. I learned from an interview with Vreeland that he actually hadn't heard much of Carpenter's catalog or many horror themes at all for that matter. That is shocking to me! You could have told me he studied horror scores in college, and I would have believed you. It's so incredibly well done that it feels like a love letter to that era without ever feeling hokey or ripping anything off: it is so original, while also feeling like it belongs in that era. If you had to ask me favorites from the score I'd say the actual "Theme," "Detroit," and "Heels" all are really powerful tracks that evoke a lot of emotion and impending dread. I cannot get enough of it...it's haunting to me.
I've already gone on far too much about this film, so I'll try to wrap it up. To me, 'It Follows' is a modern masterpiece. It is essentially an A24 film before A24 even existed and ramped up this new trend of 'elevated horror.' God I hate that term, no matter how true it is, but I digress, it is so much more than jump scares and slicing & dicing. Not that there's anything wrong with slicing & dicing...hell, slasher movies are probably my favorite sub-genre...but it's nice to see a film like this that subverts expectations and brings something new to the table while simultaneously playing with previous tropes. It's atmospheric, quirky, terrifying without even trying, and just a joy to watch. The film is easily in my top 3 films I've seen in the past 10 years. You can compare the curse element of 'It Follows' to that of 'The Ring' or 'Smile' but in my opinion, it does it the best out of the three. That's a whole different conversation though haha I cannot recommend seeing 'It Follows' enough.
If you want to see the film in the best possible way, I cannot recommend the new Limited Edition of 'It Follows' by Second Sight Films enough. The new 4K-UHD scan only enhances this already brilliant film. There are incredible essays and write ups on the film within a book that comes along with it that are not only thought provoking & eye opening, but far superior than my dumbass can write here. Just a gorgeous release that is packed to the brim with special features & goodies if you're a fan of the film.
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