It Follows (2014) Review

Director/Writer: David Robert Mitchell
Cinematographer: Mike Gioulakis
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe

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I first heard about It Follows a couple of months ago, and heard it was generating some buzz at Cannes. The little I heard about the film along with the striking poster made me super excited for it – a fresh horror film with an interesting premise was long overdue after the shambles of a year for horror. When I found out the university’s theatre would be playing it, I jumped at the chance to see it and saw it opening night (tonight).

Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m too pleased with what I saw. I was disappointed. I certainly didn’t like it as much as I thought I would or even as much as I would like to, if I’m being completely honest.

There’s a number of problems I had with this film. Firstly, were the stale performances from nearly everyone. For a film which features sex at the forefront of it, I felt that there was absolutely no chemistry between the characters, which really took me out of the experience. The title character, Jay, had no real depth to her, which is a shame as I thought that her actress, Maika Monroe, was the best out of the whole group and that she deserved more to work with, as well as a better supporting cast.

Also, the plot was, how can I describe it, original and fresh, but still somewhat laughable. It Follows follows (excuse the pun) a young girl called Jay as she has seemingly innocent sex with her boyfriend Hugh. Hugh then tells her that he has passed an STG (Sexually Transmitted Ghost, I came up with it myself – thank you) onto her and that she will now have this entityfollow her about and try to kill her until she passes it onto another person by sleeping with them. Yes, I’m being serious. OK, OK, getting past that, there are still a ton of points in watching this film that I was thinking “this doesn’t make sense”, “Why did this happen?” and “seriously?”. For example, when the gang is on the beach and “It” creeps up behind Jay, it doesn’t kill her, instead opting to do something slightly less fatal but equally as terrifying – pull her hair! Really guys? It could have easily killed her, but the film can’t last for only 40 minutes, right?
This wasn’t the only time something like this happened, though. There are multiple examples of things that didn’t make any sense to the continuity but happened anyway throughout the film and they just annoyed me.

Another problem I had was the ending. Mild spoilers here, but not really because..nothing actually happens! I mean, I guess the ending’s left a little open ended, but I took that Paul still had it as didn’t actually sleep with the prostitutes he drove past, and that the guy in the red behind them in the closing shot was the STG. My interpretation, if it is correct, annoys me, as the film begins with someone getting this STG, and it ends with someone having this STG and nothing actually happens and therefore everything that the characters actually did during the film is pointless.

Oh, and the panning and long shots in this film. Dear Lord, the long shots. It almost began to feel like a Paul Thomas Anderson film, a director who clearly influenced David Robert Mitchell, the director of this film. I enjoyed these elements at the beginning but it eventually began to feel a bit…pretentious and showy, with a long shot combined with intense panning occurring almost every other scene. It became annoying at times and I wish that they were used sparingly rather than pushed in my face every ten minutes.

However, the film wasn’t all bad and there were some areas it excelled in. Mainly, the soundtrack. I am a huge fan of synth-music, and the whole soundtrack felt like a throwback to early 80s techno-synth music and it was fantastic. I’m currently listening to it as I write this, actually. It helped build tension in all the right moments and really built up and immersed me in the whole atmosphere of the film.

Something I appreciated with this film was that Mitchell was clearly influenced by the classic horror films of yesteryear, with the slow moving entities reminiscent of Michael Myers, the knife wielding villain in Halloween, the paranoia of who could be “It” somewhat paralleling The Thing and the supernatural element of dread and doom, knowing you can never escape, from The Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. As a fan of my classic horror, it really pleased me to see these homages in, and influences on, Mitchell’s work.

Another thing that was very good about the film was the haunting, chilling and at times disturbing cinematography. Before watching this film, I thought it would be sort of Winding-Refn Drive-esque, with neon permeating each scene. The poster as well as the soundtrack indicated towards it being having a very neon style. I’d just like to say I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of neon in film and I certainly think this is the sort of atmospheric film that would have benefited from a neon aesthetic, but it looks like I’m going to have to wait for Refn’s The Neon Demon for that. The film is not filled with that neon vibe I was hoping for and the visual style of this film is different from what I expected, but still very good nonetheless. Some scenes were visually incredible – pictures of derelict houses lined up in a row and shots of the eerie-looking swimming pool building stand out specifically in my head as being really haunting but still visually pretty.

Probably the best thing the director chose to do in this film is give us so little information on this STG. I can imagine this little detail is going to cause some division of opinion, but I am personally glad that we aren’t told a lot. Where it came from, what would happen if you did X, Y and Z among others are the questions we are forced to think about, and this really bumps up the creepiness factor, as well as provides discussion and talking points for the film.

Overall, though, It Follows is a film that I found had its moments and its reasons to shine, but the many problems it had just stopped it from being one of the defining horror films of the decade. I appreciate what the director is trying to do and I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for his future projects.