It Follows,
Available for streaming on Netflix
Hi. Cheating again. It Follows came out in 2014, and since then I’ve been talking about it to whoever would listen. It has a brilliant, original concept and commits to its story and characters in a way that’s rare in horror. There are no cheap thrills in It Follows, only a steadily growing sense of dread that builds till it’s almost unbearable. Go ahead, get used to looking over your shoulder just to check if anything’s following you on the way home after watching it. You’ll be doing that for weeks.
Here’s a short review from when I included it in my write-up about the cinematic influences of Stranger Things:
In It Follows, the “horny adolescents battle the occult” story line from Stranger Things is really the only story line. With a sexually transmitted boogieman as its baddie, this world is no place for the littler kids. As opposed to Stranger Things, this movie purposefully avoids dating itself – there’s no hip soundtrack or fashions to let us know that we’re in a certain year or even decade. The setting is neutral, almost bland. So the group of teens at its center are as seemingly untethered from a real time and place as they are from the adult world. Their waking life is portrayed as a hazy dream, but one that turns into a nightmare as they’re hunted, one by one, by an unknown force. And be warned, the thing that does follow them- monster, spirit, whatever it is – is terrifying in its relentlessness. The opening scene, almost completely free of dialogue and chilling to the core, let’s you know this is going to be a damn scary movie. All the more so since it’s easy to get invested in these characters – ragtag but tough as nails – and their mission to escape the evil that’s seeped into their lives for some unexplainable reason. Any adults are absentee or unhelpful. Just like in Stranger Things, here, it’s the kids that are alright.
The Screen and I 