On my way home after the screening of new Indie horror ‘It Follows’ at the London Film Festival I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder at the footsteps I could hear behind me. I almost ran to my door. Jay is 19 and does what any normal teenager does. She hangs out with her friends, swims in the pool and meets her new beau for trips to the movies. Unfortunately Jay’s latest boyfriend has a terrible secret that he passes on to her through intercourse and she is now cursed with the worst STI ever.
Jay starts to see a figure walking towards her slowly. Imagine the scene in Halloween where Laurie Strode hammers on the doors of her uncaring neighbours as Michael Myers strides slowly and silently towards her. You can out run it but it can never be stopped. If you pass it on to someone else and they die, then the curse reverts back to you and will continue to travel back down the chain. The entity also shape-shifts meaning it could anybody around you including your friends or parents.
This tired horror cliché has been given a new lease of life and the results are thrilling. You really get a sense of the nightmare the curse creates. You enter a twilight world where you can never relax, never sleep as it will always be taking another step towards you. What seems quite benign at first becomes suspenseful and frightening. Mitchell takes inspiration from slasher, zombie and supernatural horrors and comes up with his own iconic evil inspired from a recurring dream he had as a child.
This is one of the most elegant teen horrors I’ve ever seen in a long time. The acting is top notch, Jay is played by Mailka Monroe last seen in ‘The Guest’ and she’s really watchable and charismatic. Though the characterisations of all her friends aren’t completely fleshed out, it doesn’t matter. The film creates the feeling of a world that never existed yet we can fully buy into. The sets are beautifully dressed with a mixture of modern and retro fittings. Bowl-glassed TVs play endless 50’s monster movies, coloured lamps throw a dusty haze over the smiling faces on the Polaroid photographs tucked into the mirrors.
The costumes are simple and classic, leather jackets and fur collars. It all just oozes cool. The film is also almost devoid of parents and adult characters except for the apparitions adding to the teen’s sense of isolation. A huge part of the film’s success is the electronic score by Disasterpiece. Electronic stabs and swirls draw you in and shatter the calm. At times it’s relentless, heightening the feeling of hysteria and terror and yet strangely melancholy and Lynchian.
The film does veer off course a little towards the end with a final confrontation feeling a little over done and veering towards being a bit silly. Even so it’s still very exciting. It Follows is a modern classic, reminiscent of iconic horrors yet fresh enough to stand above the current crop with its shape-changing head held high. Hopefully this won’t be Mitchell’s last foray into the genre. He is a talent to watch.
OVERALL SUMMARY
It Follows is the second feature film from director David Robert Mitchell and his first foray into the horror genre. It is a resoundingly thrilling and chilling success.
