It Follows (2014) Review

 

Tagline: It doesn't think. It doesn't feel. It doesn't give up.

It Follows (2014) Review

 

When I first saw It Follows the year it came out, after it got huge critical praise and was called one of the best horror films of the decade, I thought it wasn’t that great—not bad, but nothing too memorable or worth getting excited about. Upon seeing it again, though, I think I now understand why it had appealed to so many horror fans, and continues to be something of a modern classic.

The premise is pretty simple: Jay, played by Maika Monroe, has sex with her new boyfriend Hugh, and he passes an STD on to her, except this STD stands for sexually-transmitted demon. An entity just known as IT (not Pennywise) follows her. It takes on multiple forms, appearing as a different person in various stages of nakedness, and if it gets her, it will kill her, and go back down the line of whoever passed it on to her and kill those people, too, so the only way she can get rid of it is to pass it on to someone else and hope they pass it on, and so on, but the catch is no one else can see “IT” except those who are involved in these sexual encounters.

The things that appealed to me right from the start with It Follows were the cinematography, music, and minimalistic approach. Most of the film is shot with wide angles, often characters are far back in the frame, and it always looks crisp and well-lit. One thing that’s repeated too often is showing Jay fiddling with something close-up with her fingers; they keep showing it with different variations, and at first I didn’t mind, but it just keeps happening over and over.

The thing about It Follows that I found most disappointing was the lack of scariness. It’s definitely unnerving and gets under your skin at times, but nothing about it is really that terrifying or shocking. The characters are all subdued for most of the runtime, everything is very low key, and by the finale there isn’t much of a sense that events have ramped up, it sort of just ends, but if you look at it from the perspective of adding to a purposeful dreamlike experience, I suppose it kind of works. The rules around the supernatural entity are not simple or consistent, which bugs me, and it’s hard to relate to the characters and the world they live in because of some very specific choices for the setting, props, and costumes.

The exact year or time of year cannot be determined, because characters wear all matter of clothes, and the styles blend between mid-2010s and mid-1980s. There’s also a mix of technology—old phones and TV’s, but also cellphones and a fictional clam-shell e-reader device that features prominently—which confused me the first time, but it seems to all contribute to this overarching theme of making the story seem more like a dream (or nightmare) than a reality-based world. Characters just wander through the world, parents are kept to the sidelines, no one makes intelligent, realistic choices, and it’s frustrating at times, but also intriguing, unique, and unsettling in its own way.

Personally, I don’t recommend It Follows as a must-see horror film, but if you like modern horror that feels rooted in 80’s tropes and vibes, then it’s worth watching at least once, and I think having the prior knowledge that it’s dream-like and a little abstract going into it for the first time will make it a more enjoyable and scary experience.