It Follows [M]

It’s pretty much known everywhere that horror movies harbour a generic agenda to scare teenagers away from sex. If the cliché of promiscuous teens being the first to be violently ejected from the movie weren’t enough, Wes Craven spells it all out in Scream (1996) with Randy’s famous ‘Rules for successfully surviving a horror movie’ monologue. The trope is a staple for the genre and since Craven’s metafictive stabs at it in Scream, sex in horror movies has been peppered with a little bit of irony and it’s this way of thinking that makes the featured film of this review kind of interesting. The movie: It Follows. 

The movie centres around beautiful, blonde Jay (Maika Monroe) innocently on a date with a guy she likes and just as innocently having sex in his car. The date goes bad when Jay wakes up in a parking lot, tied to a wheelchair in her bra and panties. Hugh (Jake Weary) apologetically informs her that he had a sexually transmitted curse, which he has now passed to her. She will be followed by something, it could look like anyone, and it will follow her until it kills her or she passes it on to someone else. At first Jay is too traumatised to believe it, but when she starts being stalked by strange people, the horror becomes real. 

The novelty of this movie and its central source of intrigue comes from the idea of a deadly STI that manifests itself in a creepy, ever-moving, ever-stalking, entity, which can then only be ‘cured’ by intercourse with someone else. It’s the double-edged sword of sex being the cause of the problem but also the solution, and this is pretty funny for a horror movie because on the one hand It Follows sticks to the generic trope of teens-having-sex-get-killed, but it also kind of promotes promiscuity with the heroine racking up a number of different sexual partners. 

This, and the film’s obvious ode to classic 1970s and ‘80s suburban slasher movies like Halloween (1978) or Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The cinematography is very reminiscent of the aforementioned classics, right down to the slow-moving camera down the centre of the main road with tall trees lined on either side. Amidst the few modern-looking camera tricks, there is a strong retro feeling to this movie, which is quite enjoyable and does help take some of the attention away from the film’s flaws. Story-wise, it’s a do-it-yourself: a bit like Rear Window (1954) but not as fun and with no pay-off. The tiny cluster of characters are all either boring or creepy or creepily boring and whilst this obviously is a directorial choice to downplay the characters to a level of social sterility, it results in you not becoming attached to any of them and thus just watching the movie for the horror elements only. 

But perhaps the most annoying stinger of the film, simultaneously being a clincher, is the fact that we get no pay-off regarding the ‘monster’. What one wouldn’t give for some grizzly ‘witch’ or social outcast to shed some light on the sexually transmitted curse! I’ll admit it’s fun to speculate and take the emphatic angle of ‘man, how would it feel to know that you were being constantly followed by something that doesn’t eat, sleep, or stop for anything, just moves along at the same pace?’, but at some point I would have liked a little bit of a juicy titbit as to what the curse is and how it got started. However, the cliff hanger ending brings back some of the intrigue and forces the movie to stay with you on some level. It all comes down to those final two minutes! 

It Follows is not a bad movie, but it’s definitely not without its dud points. To appreciate it, you have to look at it from the homage angle and the humorous fact that sex is what both dooms and saves the characters. 

Starring: Maika Monroe, Lili Sepe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto, and Bailey Spry.