Writer/director David Robert Mitchells lo-fi, high concept horror goes one better than being a traditional stalk and slash affair the thing chasing our heroes is a curse brought on by sexual activity, an occult STD given murderous form. Or forms: the thing that follows them all, whatever it might have been originally, can take the shape of anything it likes - anything that might help it get close enough to kill you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaRx7iR9kXg Why do the cursed continue to get it on, knowing that theyll be passing the curse onto their partners? Well, thats the clever part, and the moral conundrum at play. The thing wont ever stop. Itll keep pursuing the last person in the chain at a steady walking pace until it kills them so passing the curse on creates another link in that chain, and places a live target between you and the curse. Thats why its important to make sure that whoever the curse is passed on to receives the exposition necessary to understand what to do next. The implication here is that promiscuity is being punished on a large, conceptual scale, not just over the length and breadth of one social circle: its almost an arch pastiche of certain traditional horror tropes. There are echoes of Carpenters classic Halloween here, as well as Jacques Tourneurs fantastic 1957 occult chiller Night Of The Demon and Camerons original drive-in masterpiece The Terminator. But thats not to say that It Follows is unoriginal - far from it. This is a film greater than the sum of its influences. Its riveting; its brilliantly, creatively shot; its kind of funny just when it needs to be. When It Follows plays with the horror genres touchstones, it plays the story itself as straight as can be. And, of course, its genuinely, thrillingly unsettling, often terrifying. Even better, there are moments when you feel that rare thing happening as you watch it: the sensation that a modern classic is unfolding in front of you, a film that people will return to again and again and again.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
