Film review: It Follows pushes boundaries while respecting the history of the suspense genre.
True horror comes from the unknown. To be ignorant is to become engulfed in the terrors of your surroundings as your cloaked in dour confusion. With just his sophomore feature and first horror film, It Follows, writer/director David Robert Mitchell proves he’s a highly adapted dispeller of suspense. He has a firm respect for the genre and its history, but is willing to push his thematic and visual possibilities.
Suburban girl Jay Height (Maika Monroe) lives a blissful life. She fills her days hanging out with her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and their friends Paul (Keir Gilchrist) and Yara (Olivia Luccardi) or by herself in her aboveground pool. Since her youth, she’s dreamed about being with boys, going on dates and holding hands, and she finds that solace with her new older man, Hugh (Jake Weary).
After a steamy night under the stars in his car, however, Jay finds out a mysterious, killer force has transferred from her male partner into her soul. In the form of a silent, invisible walking force, this stalker seeks to kill Jay until she too has sex with another person. Through her friends and sister, along with a mature fellow classmen Greg (Daniel Zovatto), these teenagers try to murder this force before it stops her.
It Follows is almost extraordinary in its straightforwardness. Everything is established early on, explained in a decent amount of exposition both spoken and seen, and the motivations of the characters are never in question. This both compels and hurts Mitchell’s film, a simple film that can’t help at times but to feel overstretched. Despite all the potential this thriller displays, it’s evident throughout how mundane it can become to see people run away from walking creeps, even against loud sonic music. Perhaps this is why our zombies run nowadays.
That said, for how grounded and decided the characters and situations are, it’s never 100 percent certain what exactly Mitchell wants audiences to take away from his picture. Is it purely a cautionary tale, mimicking the hyperbole-laced public service videos of his youth and before? Or is this simply a tongue-in-cheek nod to those ‘80s-type films, which promoted and discriminated young sex in fair balance?
The most likely answer would be some mix of the two, drabbing its public paranoia to service the characters while poking fun at the extremes. It Follows can be a dryly-funny film at times, which those who saw Mitchell’s first film, The Myth of the American Sleepover, may see more clearly. Its parody, however, never goes over board or too nonsensical. Mitchell clearly hosts a great deal of respect for his genre, characters and story to get too silly.
This may disappoint those, like myself who like something more along the lines of the gleeful rambunctiousness of the similarly-designed, if slightly more high-concept, Teeth from 2008. Still, Mitchell demonstrates himself as an extremely established filmmaker here, perfectly using atmosphere, small-town silence and a sense of dread to his advantage. Even when It Follows becomes either a tad too repetitive or a little too bold-headed for its own good, Mitchell’s assured and diligent filmmaking always makes his film sell.
As mentioned earlier, however, a big thanks to this also goes to composer Disasterpeace, a psydemon for musician Rich Vreeland. His eerily thunderous-yet-creeping score always keeps the edge, holding their attentions but never overplaying the terror of the moment. The moment already rings true in suspense, but Disasterpeace always adds an extra gust of panic.
Equally as haunting is Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography. Even though It Follows is a decidedly small, downplayed film, Gioulakis—from the first extended shot onwards—gives a sense of scale and flourish. It never feels distracting or showy, and always heightens the scope of the moment. It’s crafty, beautiful work, which makes Mitchell’s film have a rugged elegance to its tale of deadly intercourse.
But what truly makes the film work—beyond the filmmaker’s sure-handed work—are the performers. Monroe continues to shine after her exceptional work in last year’s The Guest, and believably plays into the heightened fear of her predicament. Weary and Zovatto, additionally, can be both charming and allusive in equal measures. Gilchrist, however, is at the movie’s heart. He plays the sap of the bunch with conviction and stride, likable in a realistic and never overdone manner.
Even when the dialogue is extremely stiff—and, again, it’s unsure if this is intentional or because the writer/director is not completely in touch with the early teen community—they make most of these moments shine. Though they can sometimes be simplistic to a fault, the actors make each character make their personalities sing. They appropriately wiggle subtle nuances to their personas.
Thankfully playing into the tricks and trades of thrillers new and old, It Follows is a refreshingly disquieting horror film. Whether Mitchell made a movie to talk about STDs or just for kicks, his talents shine and prove he’s a filmmaker with lots of promise. It may be a little too somber and harkened to win over everyone, but those who tag along in this adventure will want to keep going.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
@thewillofash
