Ever since Michael Myers committed his first killing spree in 1978, audiences have come to expect certain things of the horror genre. You know the drill - the walking psychopath, the screaming, irrational teenagers, the virginal heroine, etc. All of these have been worn into the ground by cheap horror flicks of the 80s and 90s, yet somehow second-time director David Robert Mitchell has breathed new life into these tropes to create an inventive, scary experience.
The film centres around Jay (Maika Monroe), a sultry American teenager who thinks she might have found true love in Hugh (Jake Weary). After a slightly strange visit to the cinema - where Hugh claims he can see a girl in a yellow dress - they spend a night at the beach, and consummate their relationship in the back of his car. All seems well until Hugh breaks out the chloroform and Jay finds herself tied to a wheelchair, whereupon she's informed that she's inherited a curse. Never a good first date. A naked woman walks up the train tracks toward her - at a creepily slow, measured pace - and we're informed that she's The Follower, a supernatural entity that will relentlessly, fatally pursue Jay from now on, like a ghostly Terminator. She doesn't believe it at first but, after a few close-calls at her school and home, she bands together with her (remarkably supportive) friends to stop the creature once and for all.
What distinguishes It Follows from the rest of its type is that scares aren't the only thing on its mind. Mitchell's previous film, The Myth of the American Sleepover, was very much concerned with the relationships between its young subjects, and there's something similar going on here. Jay and her friends Paul, Yara and Kelly all feel remarkably well-defined, and much of the film is invested in portraying them as naive and listless - there's a recurring motif of floating in pools, which comes into important play during the climax. Throughout the horror these characters seem to be struggling to navigate the labyrinth of adolescence, particularly when it comes to sex - the clever twist to the curse is that it can only be passed on through having further sex, a world away from Halloween's apparent condemnation of "immoral" youth. There's a great line towards the end, where one characters asks another, post-coitus, whether they "feel any different." The answer is no. Sex isn't demonised or punished, it's just another one of those things - albeit with the potential to be accompanied with the world's worst STD.
Although having said that, it's still a world away from Dazed & Confused. Mitchell creates a palpable sense of dread throughout, never really going for jump-scares but generating that horrible feeling that there's something in the corner of your eye, lurking off the edge of the frame just waiting to emerge. A sequence at a beach is a terrifying high point, as is a scene which ends in the world's most disturbing instance of dry-humping. I thought I stayed quite composed throughout the screening, but as I left I became increasingly irate and paranoid, especially when a blonde woman decided to follow me home from the tube (she apparently lives two doors away).
It all adds up to a smart film, although I still don't think it's quite as smart as it thinks it is. When I heard it was a smash hit at Cannes I had (perhaps too) high hopes for it to be a slice of arthouse brilliance, in the same vein as The Babadook. Yet the film still indulges in plenty of genre familiarities, not all welcome - the gory conclusion of the opening sequence was out of place, and drew far too many laughs from the audience. And as much as I liked the synth-heavy soundtrack and beautiful camera work, I still found myself only able to admire it rather than love it (as I'd hoped). Still, this is one of the best bits of American horror in years, and you'd be crazy to miss it. Just don't expect to be able to walk home alone without checking over your shoulder every other step.
★★★★
