There have been many horror movies over the years that have been hailed as “a new horror classic,” but so few of them actually live up to that title. It Follows is that rare film that is truly a classic. Released to theaters ten years ago this year, It Follows very quickly proved that it wasn’t just another tired rehash of the tropes found in the slasher genre, and wound up becoming a horror film that’s truly scary and unnerving.
After a tense opening scene showing a teenage girl (Bailey Spry) running in a panic from an unseen threat--only to be found dead the following morning, the movie then focuses on Jay (Maika Monroe), a nineteen year old college student who’s trying to find some fun in her mundane life. But after a sexual encounter with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary), things get very weird. Hugh knocks out Jay with chloroform, then ties her to a wheelchair in an abandoned building.
And it gets even stranger when Hugh begins explaining to Jay that now they’ve had sex, he has passed on a curse to her in the form of an evil entity that will stalk her to the ends of the earth. This entity had been stalking Hugh, but since he’s made love to Jay, she will now be its target. If this entity touches her, Jay will die instantly. As proof, Hugh shows her a very odd figure approaching the abandoned building; a half naked woman who’s walking very slowly but steadily towards them. Hugh tells Jay that she needs to have sex with somebody else in order to remove the curse from her, by passing it on to her next partner.
The storyline may sound silly when read like this, but director David Robert Mitchell helms It Follows with such deadpan execution that the movie is a pitch perfect study in horror. The cold, unyielding camerawork and cinematography starts building up such a powerful sense of dread even before the supernatural elements kick in. The entity is depicted as various unknown people who show up in the background of a shot, walking directly towards the camera in a slow, steady gait--and once you see one of them, the tension is palpable.
This is done so well that, in one instance, there is a college student, a young woman, who starts walking towards the camera off in the distance in this same slow, unnerving way--and the characters never notice her, only the viewer, which makes this scene all the more terrifying. Plenty of critics have made the obvious argument that the entity is supposed to symbolize an STD, and that certainly tracks. But It Follows smartly leaves a lot of its questions unanswered, which only adds to the mystery and creepiness of its concept. It Follows thankfully lacks any deep exposition scenes where the kids consult an “expert” who explains away what the entity is, and how to fight it.
Instead Jay, her wannabe boyfriend Paul (Keir Gilchrist), her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe), their mutual friend, the endearing Yara (Olivia Luccardi), and Greg (Daniel Zovatto), their neighbor from across the street, all band together to fight this thing any way they can, starting with tracking down the whereabouts of Hugh. Their unflinching support for Jay is touching, and their dedication to her--even as things get extremely bizarre around them--is so inspiring that we would all be so lucky to have friends like this group.
It Follows tells its story visually, and its quiet, slow burn pacing may lull you into a false sense of security--and that’s when the movie bashes you over the head with a horrific scene that may be lacking in gore, but still has plenty of white-knuckle suspense. There have been no sequels, nor talk of a remake in the ten years that It Follows has been released, and I hope it stays that way. For It Follows still proudly stands alone as a modern classic in the horror genre, and it deserves to remain that way. --SF
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