Indie horror flick It Follows has been getting hype long before its Friday the 13th release, and based on the premise, we can see why. The story revolves around a suburban teen losing her virginity, but rather than the post-coital awkwardness being the worst thing she has to deal with, she’s told by her fleeting lover that he passed on an amorphous zombie demon that will now follow her everywhere she goes. So much for cheap thrills.
The allegory sounds simple – if you have sex, you’re probably gonna die – but based on the reviews, there’s a whole lot more going on, and every bit of it is terrifying.
It Follows Reviews
“It may only be March, but we already have a contender for the year’s best horror film:It Follows, out [today]. Arriving on a wave of hype to which it ably lives up, David Robert Mitchell’s indie revolves around a young suburban girl named Jay (Rebecca Green) who falls for a new boy in town and, after a few dates, decides to have sex with him. In their post-coital embrace, she’s knocked out, and awakens to find herself tied to a chair in a dingy abandoned building, where her beau informs her that she’s now infected with some sort of curse, and that strange, slowly walking ghoulish figures will now stalk her until she passes “it” on to someone else via intercourse. What ensues is an ominous thriller that, in form and content, wears its genre influences on its sleeve.”
Vulture thinks it’s more disturbing than anything else.
“After seeing the indie horror film It Follows, I’m suddenly convinced that there’s nothing more blood-freezing than a lone figure, clear as day, relatively normal-looking, walking at a moderate pace from way back in the frame toward the front… My whole life I’ve been a horror-movie freak, and I’ve rarely been as scared as I was at It Follows. But it wasn’t a fun kind of scare. It was the so-upset-I-feel-sick kind of amorphous dread. I felt sure that there was no way the young director, David Robert Mitchell, could get his heroine out of the situation she was in, and that this would be another of those horror movies that ends on a note of defeat and utter nihilism — or utter cynicism, if you figure that most modern horror films that end with the monster still up and about will turn into “franchises.” (I’ll never not use that word without quotation marks,because when I grew up, a franchise was a 7-Eleven store or a Mobil station.) I didn’t trust him, which actually might be a sign of his skill.”
The L.A. Times believes it conjures up a nightmarish dread nostalgic of its predecessors.
“While it taps that time-honored (especially the ’70s) horror movie trope that presents the “monster” as a cautionary metaphor for teen promiscuity, “It Follows” adeptly layers in creepy subtext and intensely pitched nightmarish dread to nerve-jangling effect. Also welcome are the convincing performances by Monroe and young, fresh-faced cast mates playing relatable characters who don’t fall prey to the bone-headed moves that tend to typify contemporary horror-flick behavior.”
The Rolling Stone says is just plain cool.
“Writer-director David Robert Mitchell (The Myth of the American Sleepover) has clearly studied up on John Carpenter, especially Halloween. But Mitchell has his own twisted gift for letting atmosphere help define character. It Follows creeps you out big-time in that cool way that freezes the blood. With the help of haunting wide-screen images from cinematographer Michael Gioulakis, the tension escalates so high we’re not sure what we’re seeing. The uncertainty breaks the film’s spell near the end. Till then, It Follows shakes you up good.”
IGN thinks it’s original, but it isn’t for everyone.
“It’s a refreshing change for modern horror, which has become far too reliant on jump scares and deafening sound cues, in place of carefully mounting tension. Mitchell prefers a slow burn. The use of wide shots is particularly successful once Jay starts being pursued. It’s almost like a sick game of ‘Where’s Wally?’ – find the plodding killer in the frame before it’s too late… [It Follows is] a hauntingly original and genuinely unsettling take on familiar spooky elements that ultimately doesn’t quite hang together and might even alienate hardcore horror fans. But there’s huge promise here from writer-director David Robert Mitchell and, whatever the genre, it’ll be worth seeing how he follows it up.”
