Movie Review - It Follows: Tense and scary Horror that will stay in your mind long afterwards

Everyone, at some point, has that bad relationship breakdown.  It can be a spouse, partner, lover, or even a friend or family member, and it can be for many reasons – but at almost everyone will have been hurt emotionally by someone they thought they could trust.  And though the distance afforded by time might heal much of this hurt, in many cases the merest reminder of the person that was the cause of it can make those feelings return.  It may even be a glimpse of someone in the street who – just for a moment – can be mistaken for that person.  In this manner you can say that it is possible to be haunted by someone who has hurt you – but newly released Horror ‘It Follows’ turns this in to something more relentlessly frightening and in many ways truly unsettling.  In this film a curse passed on through sex leads characters to pursue loveless encounters, with no chance of emotionally fulfilling relationships, just to keep at bay a murderous supernatural force.

Teenage girl Jay (Maika Monroe, last seen in ‘The Guest’, and fast becoming a new ‘scream queen’ of Horror movies) is dating Hugh, a 21 year old boy, and is having fun going to the cinema, to the diner – even though he occasionally seems troubled.  After an intimate evening walk through woods near the lakeside they have sex in his car; then things take a seriously darker turn as Jay finds herself strapped to a wheelchair by Hugh in only her underwear.  He explains that something will now follow her, that he passed it on to her when they had sex, that it will continue to follow her until it gets hold of her and kills her – before going after him, the last person, and then down the line to the person who passed it to him.  The only way to stop it is to pass it on to another person by having sex with them.

Hugh (Jake Weary) has passed on what could be described as a terrifying STI to Jay (Maika Monroe)

This simple set-up provides the back bone to a remarkably effective Horror film, one that eschews slow creeping dread, or chills and unease, and instead creates a sustained feeling of tension and rising panic.  This is a film that does not ‘tease’ the ghost central to the curse, with shadowy glimpses or half-seen rapid cuts; as soon as the curse is passed to Jay she is able to see it, and each time it appears it takes the appearance of a different person.  Apart from one briefly glimpsed grisly murder early on, there is little to no gore, and by and large the spook isn’t the black eyed, screaming mouthed apparition of many recent ghostly Horrors.  But that is not to say it is not a frightening presence.  It walks relentlessly towards its prey with a stone-faced expression, like a sexually-fixated ghost version of the Terminator.  Some appearances are more unsettling than others, especially those where it seems to be taking on the façade of a former victim; and not all of those look as though they were passed the curse in a consensual act…  The sense of rising panic each time the ghost appears is helped by the nerve-shredding score (part of an effective ‘80’s synth-led throwback by Rich Vreeland).

That this tension is sustained throughout virtually the entire film is a great achievement, helped by a strong performance from Monroe as she deals with the terror of her situation – and some horrendous and soul destroying decisions she must make to keep the curse at bay.  The supporting cast around her aren’t always given enough to work from, and in some ways are slightly archetypal movie teens (the geeky friend who holds a secret crush on Jay, her younger sister who has the hots for the pot-smoking lothario living over the road, the nerdy book-worm with oversized glasses).  Some people might find the characterisation too sketchy to make them likeable, however keeping the focus on this group of teens makes sense in the genre, and adds to the subtext the curse is clearly meant to represent: a cycle where sex is an abusive thing, used as an ineffectual way to escape from itself, whilst causing further damage to the individual at the centre of it.  And it is during the teenage years that many people have their illusions around romance and sex shattered in some way or other.

The film is shot in a way that plays up the potential for fear in any setting – whether at daytime or night.  The night scenes are especially striking due to the way the suburban street lighting has been captured - at once mundane but with a perpetual undertone of threat.  There are several scenes filmed in and around the abandoned, decaying suburban houses around Detroit, where economic decline is as much of a creeping, entropic presence as the ghost at the film’s centre.  Just as the characters are trying to flee the curse, this film shows how people have left behind entire neighbourhoods due to a real and no less frightening curse.  There are also some effective shots where the camera rotates around, showing the entire surroundings, making the viewer almost feel as though they are looking out for the ghost, even when Jay herself is not aware (and making those scenes even more tense).

Jay has to spend much of the film watching over her shoulder.  This film may make you feel like you need to do the same...

Outside of its relentless and almost continual sense of tension and anxiety, ‘It Follows’ unsettles in the way it presents sexual abuse and sexual violence without ever actually portraying any scenes or imagery of that on screen.  It uses its concept to maximum effectiveness and while clearly aware of and respectful to genre conventions, it doesn’t feel like it is trying to be a throwback or homage to movies from other eras.  It is likely to gain a strong cult fan-base over time, and people will be discussing the ideas it presents for some years to come.  It is just as likely to creep in to your thoughts afterwards – especially during sleepless nights, wondering if that creaking on the stairs was someone walking up them…