It Follows Movie Review

It Follows (2015)

Buy It Follows on Amazon Video
Written by: David Robert Mitchell
Directed by: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi
Rated: R

Plot
After having sex for the first time, a young woman is followed by a deadly supernatural force.

Verdict
I really enjoyed this. It's not just a good horror movie, it's a good movie. It's more of a thriller with a supernatural bent, using the slow moving antagonist to maximum effect. You can't help but look over your shoulder to make sure there is nothing walking up to you.
Watch it.

Review
It Follows has a great introduction that showcases the direction, cinematography, and music you'll see throughout. It sets the tone perfectly, and this is a reserved movie. It doesn't feel like a horror movie due to the restraint, but you know something could happen at any moment so you're always uneasy.

It's masterfully done. By avoiding the excess that usually beleaguers the genre, this becomes a thriller more than horror. Just like The Terminator (1984) shifted from horror to sci-fi. This is more thriller than horror. It creates a certain reality and never seems silly.  This creates such a dark mood as good as anything I've seen. It's on the level of The X-files for mood, which is the king of making you want to look over your shoulder. Few movies unsettle you to the degree this does, and that's without really doing anything. It's all anticipation. The movie reveals just enough so you dread what might happen or what could lurk around the corner. You constantly brace for what' you'll see next. This is intense and the '80s synth soundtrack intensifies the feeling, making you want to jump out of your chair.

Maika Monroe plays Jay

I love 80s synth soundtracks, and this does it well. This incorporates a lot of tropes, but re-purposes them and transforms them from a joke to a plot point. It's a homage to the classics. In horror movies, the protagonist runs wildly away from a monster, and yet the monster while only walking always catches up. In this movie, the monster only walks, but it makes this so unsettling. The slow moving monster slows the movie down and gives the mood a chance to seep into your pores. You know there's nothing in the room with you, but you want to check anyway. Horror movies also like to kill to those who have recently lost their virginity. In this, losing your virginity has horrific consequences.

Is the monster some kind of succubus? You don't know how it works or how the characters know anything about it. There is really no way Jeff could have any amount of knowledge about the situation. If you pull on that thread this movie does unravel, but if your ignore it, It Follows works completely. Though it would have been quite easy to provide an explanation by having the person that infected Jeff to have told him, and you just pass the story along.

Visceral and creepy.

Is this a commentary on teenage abstinence or STDs? It's so well made that you want to read into it, but it's not saying anything more than any other horror movie. The plot easily could be a forgettable '80s horror movie homage, but the direction makes this much more.

The beach scene is great. We get to see what everyone else, the unaffected see, nothing. There is definitely something on the beach, and something did happen. While they now believe Jay, they aren't sure what's happening.
The ending gets slightly contrived to amplify dread, providing plenty of creepy music. I appreciate that they didn't make the monster a moron for an easy fight.