Modern horror movies have often relied on out-there concepts as a means of garnering interest and getting people into theater seats. Whether it’s vaginas with teeth, or people getting their mouths sewn to butts, or what have you, a new horror sub-genre that’s all about being as twisted and weird as possible seems to now exist. These days, a killer stalking some kids out in the woods almost feels passé. So, seeing as David Robert Mitchell’s (The Myth of the American Sleepover) new film, It Follows, is about a young girl who contracts a Sexually Transmitted Demon, it would make sense to assume that it’s the latest entry in this new category of contemporary films that are primarily concerned with being salacious. You’d be wrong to assume as much though, because, despite the outlandish setup, It Follows is actually one of the best throwbacks to the golden age of slow-burn, tension-building horror that we’ve seen in a while.
A big reason for that is how effective the big scary thing we’re introduced to is at making you bite your nails. After our heroine, a nineteen-year-old girl named Jay (Maika Monroe), awakens from a sexual encounter with a new boyfriend unexpectedly tied to a chair, he explains that he’s passed to her an affliction in which a deadly specter will follow her everywhere she goes. It moves slowly and deliberately, but it never stops coming, it can appear as anyone (it usually chooses to appear as someone methy-looking), and if it ever touches her it will cause her a grizzly death. The only way she can get rid of this creeping terror is to sleep with someone else and to pass it on to them, but if it manages to kill the person she passes it to before they also pass it along, then it doubles back and starts working the other way down the line again. Death, it seems, can only be put off, never overcome.
It’s that sense of doom and dread, and the slow moving nature of the demon, that allows It Follows to take its time and build a story that properly goes from a simmer to a boiling point in a way that too few movies nowadays do. Ever since the advent of computer graphics that can make any kind of movie monster—no matter how crazy looking—come alive and do anything, and the innovation of zombies who run and scream instead of shuffle and moan, the horror genre has contained so many high-energy goings-on than it’s started to move away from its spooky roots and toward something that more closely resembles the action genre. Conversely, this movie is all about introducing a threat that’s more dangerous in your mind than it ever is on screen. It’s the sort of film where the quiet and peaceful moments are just as tense as the ones where the music is ramping up and it’s clear that danger is right around the corner, because, in this scenario, danger is always around the corner, and a quiet moment’s only possible purpose is lulling you into a sense of complacency so that you can be shocked by a sudden jolt. By making everything a prelude to inevitable danger, It Follows keeps you engaged and on your toes from its beginning to its end.
Two more ways the film is able to keep you engrossed are by making sure you can relate to the plights of its characters and by making sure its setting is well-established. Jay lives in the suburbs of Detroit, and the first few scenes of the film give us a tour of her street that not only establishes the geography of where a lot of the film’s action takes place, but also paints it as being exactly the sort of mundane suburb that everyone has been in at one time in their life or another. Though the time period that this movie takes place in seems to be kept purposely vague through the intermingling of technology both modern and vintage, it’s clear that this place is supposed to be the same world that we live in, and these kids are supposed to be the average sort of kids who we’ve all known. For a movie about a killer demon, It Follows feels very naturalistic in tone and setting.
Monroe playing the lead role is a big reason why the character stuff works. She’s likable without being cloying, she’s beautiful without looking like a Hollywood creation, she’s able to have moments where she projects strength and moments where she projects vulnerability without ever feeling like a caricature of the feminine ideal of either. In short, she’s just a really, really great lead actress who likely has plenty more starring roles in front of her. So far I’ve only seen her in this and last year’s The Guest, but since both are so great and she was among the best aspects of each, already she’s taken on the position of being one of the queens of modern genre movies in my mind.
A subplot involving Jay and a nebbish childhood friend (Keir Gilchrist) who’s long been in love with her works well to engage you even further in the story. Most of the film is about creating specific moments of tension thanks to a looming threat that’s accentuated through building music (the score is probably the best horror movie score since the glory days of the 80s) and stylish camerawork and editing (cinematographer Mike Gioulakis even pulls out the Michael Bay 360 degree rotating camera trick, but actually makes it work by using it to accentuate the closing distance between the people we care about and the danger making its way toward them), but the romance angle adds another layer of stakes that are even more personal and relatable than those of life and death. His concern with her romantic status and her need to pass a curse on sexually are conflicting motivations, and waiting for them to finally collide while Gilchrist pouts like a puppy makes for affecting teenage drama. There’s a little bit of something in here for everyone, so long as you don’t mind getting spooked by supernatural murder.
It Follows is just a step better than most horror movies that get released—to the point where it’s probably the best one that’s come out in years—and that’s not just because of its all around solid craftsmanship. It’s also layered with deeper themes that make it more than just a collection of titillating chills and thrills. The sexual nature of the curse Jay is under dissects the slut shaming of 70s and 80s slasher horror by looking at it with the benefit of a couple of decades of separation and perspective. Here the men are just as afflicted by the shame and confusion that comes along with sexual awakening as the women, so it’s able to be used as a metaphor in a less exploitive way. On the surface level of the story there’s a pretty direct allegory where the passing down of the curse represents the way that frivolous sexual encounters often lead to STDs. Even more interesting than that though is what the characters' experiences say about abuse and how those who experience trauma seem to inevitably pass it along to anyone they try to get close to afterward. It Follows is an entertaining movie to watch in the moment, but it also leaves you with plenty to chew on after it’s over.
The only reoccurring theme I couldn’t quite come up with any theories about is why we’re shown so many scenes of people eating depressing-looking lunches. I mean, this movie has three or four scenes of the most pathetic sandwiches you’ll ever see sitting on paper plates. I guess that’ll be something to mull over when I get a chance give it another watch though. Which is something I’ll definitely be doing. Soon, I hope.
