IT FOLLOWS review by M. Muniz

             

It seems like a lot of horror movies these days really don’t want us to have sex anymore….like….ever.  Eric England’s CONTRACTED, Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch’s STARRY EYES are some recent ones in which sexual encounters bring hellish fates upon their protagonists.   Now (and probably far most effectively) David Robert Mitchell brings IT FOLLOWS as the newest installment that will blow any chance of getting laid on date night into total oblivion. 

This all actually makes tons of sense.  American horror movies have always tapped into the subconscious fears of the masses.  In the 1950s, creature features invaded the silver screen and it was always some giant insect or abomination created by nuclear experimentation, clearly derived from fears of the ongoing Cold War and living beneath the constant threat of nukes.  In the 1970s, it was usually a terror that was actually created and simultaneously hidden by the government or a powerful agency, indicative of a distrustful society reeling from Vietnam and the Nixon era, still weary of government and big corporations (ALIEN and PIRANHA).  In the 80s, fears from indulgence and excess created a subtext for films like THE LOST BOYS and Cronenberg’s reimagining of THE FLY.  With technology in recent years changing the dating landscape and causing a resurgence of one night stands with apps such as Tinder after a prolonged time when such behavior had cooled with the fear of AIDS and other STDs, it all makes sense that those worries would still be ingrained into the subconscious of a generation that grew up indoctrinated with it through post-Reagan education and pop culture.  IT FOLLOWS taps into this sensible paranoia beautifully.

IT FOLLOWS is the story of Jay Height (Maika Monroe) an All-American pretty blonde who lives in Detroit with her sister and their boozing mom who we barely see or has any notable presence.  Instead, her family is more so her group of neighborhood friends.  She likes a boy, Hugh (Jake Weary), who she admittedly doesn’t know that well and acts really odd on the only true date the audience actually sees them on.  Nevertheless, one fateful night, they consummate the relationship.  Afterwards, Jay barely gets to enjoy the afterglow because Hugh unexpectedly renders her unconscious and ties her up to a chair in an abandoned building.  Things only get stranger from here on.  He explains that a shape-shifting creature will now follow her and that she must now have sex with someone else to pass it along like a nightmarish chain letter or it will eventually destroy her.  Hopefully, Hugh at least picked up the check for dinner.

Mitchell’s direction is simply fantastic.  Blending an atmospheric sense of claustrophobia with his pronounced camera work and Argento-inspired soundtrack, he manages to give the viewers such a real sense of paranoia themselves while watching.  Suddenly your eyes hover about within each frame.  All the sparse details within those frames such as background artists are now assumed to be a threat and examined with such intense scrutiny.  We’re literally in Jay’s headspace and it works so much more beautifully and engaging as a gimmick than anything stereoscopic CGI could ever pull off. 

Ultimately, IT FOLLOWS works so well and scares the hell out of everyone because this is a movie about living with affliction.  Anyone who has ever had an STD or an STD scare knows how isolating and terrifying it can be.  Anyone who has ever been stalked by someone before can probably also relate to Jay’s paranoia to the sad point of sleeping outdoors in the middle of nowhere and questioning if the odd things she’s seeing are real or just in her mind.  There’s a certain kind of fear and hopelessness that drives a fresh-faced-whole-life-in-front-of-her Jay to the haggard, broken girl she has evolved into by the third act.  Modern audiences can fully connect with this as well as probably future viewers.  The current sexual technological wave has given intimacy and connectivity new platforms and limitless ceilings, but also magnifies inherent fears about STD exposure or meeting someone who becomes a psychotic stalker (also seen in one of the year’s unexpected earlier hits, THE BOY NEXT DOOR).  Jay’s condition proves to be life altering.  This affliction changes her over the course of the film and also affects those closest to her as they also are forced to grapple with those changes, creating divisiveness and even doubt about how real it all is.  Their sincerity is a tremendous plaudit to the young cast, particularly Monroe’s stellar performance. 

IT FOLLOWS is not a perfect film, but certainly a formidable one among the discussion of the best American horror movies of recent memory.  It will be interesting to see if David Cameron Mitchell revisits the genre in the future, but even if he chose not to, the bar has been highly and exquisitely set for other filmmakers to follow this terrifying tale with their own spooky yarns.  And if I’m one of them, THAT is truly horrifying.

4/5 Excellent