It Follows (2014)

The Gist:

When Jay (Maika Monroe) finally hooks up with her new boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary), she is horrified to learn, before he promptly leaves her, that he has passed a curse onto her: somewhere out there there’s a thing walking after her and if it catches her it will kill her. Horribly. Nobody else can see it except those who have been affected by the curse and the only thing Jay can do is pass the curse on by having sex with someone else. She can run, she can hide, but no matter where she goes, it follows.

The Review:

Man, did I drop the ball when I forgot to mention this in the February preview. This is the kind of allegorical horror film that comes along once in a while with absolutely no fanfare but manages to show us something new, inspired and friggin’ terrifying.

The shortest, cheekiest way of describing It Follows is that it feels at times like the adolescent version of The Babadook. I don’t mean that in a derisive way, in fact I meant for that to come across as the highest form of praise I could muster for burgeoning independent horror films. Honest. Whilst The Babadook uses the tropes and trappings of horror to explore a fragile woman’s state of mind as a single parent, It Follows instead takes on the collapse of innocence and the move from childhood into something more adult. But with, you know, a super-creepy boogin.

Following her incredible turn alongside Dan ‘The Smoulder’ Stevens in The Guest, Maika Monroe once again finds herself in the middle of a John-Carpenter-inspired faecal hurricane. Paired with her previous role, Monroe is proving herself to be a most capable actor in these trippy independent features, which have just got to be taxing to put together. Whilst she may be dealing with something far less aesthetically-pleasing than Dan Stevens this time, she and her fellow teenaged companions ground It Follows in some damned good young-adult/old-teen acting. If it wasn’t for the shambling horror that ghosts their every step, you’d be convinced that you were watching some deeply introspective coming-of-age drama about the autumn of youth. Not that those two things can’t be one in the same, mind you.

The similarities between It Follows (which is directed by David Robert Mitchell) and the recent offerings by Adam Wingard (director of You’re Next and The Guest who is by all reports not David Robert Mitchell) are unescapable in their affection towards classic John Carpenter, but whilst Wingard’s work is playful respect, It Follows is more a straight-up homage. The spirit of Halloween runs deep in its veins from the idyllic suburban settings, to the gripping synth score, to the teenage-tinted-glasses through which the world is seen, not to mention the unknown killer-thing stalking our heroine (seriously, the appearance-changing thing that casually chases Jay is going to amble through my nightmares for weeks. Weeks, I tell you!).

Whilst it may suffer from the occasional bit of clichéd, practically-Scooby-Doo trope-age (let’s check out the ol’ abandoned swimmin’ pool, gang!), everything else about It Follows shines in the best (and creepiest) way possible. It’s a prime case study in ‘show, don’t tell’: everything you need to know for this story is right there if you’re paying attention with no bloat, distraction or side plot to draw focus from the ticking central plot. Heck, if you were being slowly followed by an invisible creature hell-bent on getting you, I doubt you’d want to get side-lined either.

The Verdict:

It Follows is as tense a 100 minutes as you can expect to see in the cinema this month, the fact it also manages to tackle some of the more nuanced and troubling aspects of growing up in the process to the sights of cosy suburbia whilst bringing a new kind of cinema monster to the screen is nothing short of incredible. Go see it and never sleep again. Sorry.

Certificate: 15

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto, Linda Boston, Heather Fairbanks, Ruby Harris

Running Time: 100 minutes

Release Date: 27^th February 2015