It takes a lot for a horror movie to make you shudder down to your core. It Follows taps into more than one of those fears to deliver one of the great horror films in recent memory. Well acted and expertly shot, It Follows goes minimal with big scary results. We also learn just how replete modern Detroit is with creepy ruins.
Jay (Maika Monroe) is your typical angsty teenage girl. She hangs out with friends, watches movies, and searches for the love that will sweep her off her feet. Things go horribly wrong for her when she does find someone though, as Jeff (Jake Weary) drugs Jay after their sexcapade and shows her how something is now following her. The only way Jay can lose thing burden is by sleeping with someone else. This is not a problem for Jay: she is really pretty and boy next door Paul (Keir Gilchrist) is MORE than willing to help her out, but she is unsure she wants to potentially harm someone she cares about.
A great horror movie chills you via a simple ubiquitous fear: for example, Halloween and the boogeyman or being bored in the Shining. It Follows has a few primal fears it taps. Many others have pointed out how this movie can be seen as an STD allegory, and it is hard to argue against. Like most kids, I had to watch all the videos/pictures of what happens to you if you catch AIDS, HPV, etc, and it made sex at least a little bit frightening. What is smart about It Follows is that it taps into the fear of the real life after effects of getting an STD: will the sex still be meaningful? If I develop feelings for someone, how do I bring up this conversation? How many sacrifices will I have to make for this disease? It Follows keeps these questions as subtext, but they permeate each scene as the audience experiences Jay’s moral dilemma with her.
Also, It Follows remembers how creepy it is to feel like someone is following you as you go about your normal day. Director David Robert Mitchell smartly opens on a nameless girl experiencing Jay’s nightmare. Smartly, he smoothly and wordlessly encircles the camera around the girl in a giant panic on what seems like a normal day. This jarring opens gives It Follows a tension and unease that permeates each successive frame. Mitchell also refreshingly abandons the modern BOO! moments for something more classic: the slow motion car wreck approach and disturbing imagery. Watching the panic engulf someone as they look over their shoulder and see something not right makes you cover your eyes but look through your fingers. It Follows never explains what “It” is, but it’s personified in phallic and grotesque ways, especially when It attacks. Mitchell makes something fresh by remembering the oldies like Halloween; heck, he even has a simple screechy soundtrack.
Maika Monroe played second fiddle to Dan Stevens in The Guest, but she’s the star here: all hail the new scream queen. Monroe is excellent in It Follows, navigating the horror heroine clichés for a path all her own. In general, the rest of the cast sort of gets out of the way to let Monroe do her thing. Keir Gilchrist has the most screen time as Paul, but he basically plays one note as the hapless longing boy next door. Jake Weary is a little better, getting to play paranoid but not stupid. Jay’s friends and family probably left their material on the cutting room floor as there is some unexplored conflict left hanging by the story.
David Robert Mitchell went back to the basics for It Follows. Why was Halloween scary? Because something evil slowly, relentlessly went after something cute. Why is Psycho scary? Simple jarring music. Why is Leprechaun scary? Ok, that last one doesn’t count, but It Follows knows what makes you uneasy and pulls the panic switch with sleepless effects.