It Follows Review

Hello :-)

If you’ve read any of my Horror reviews before you’ll know I have a history of actively avoiding the genre until recently when I decided to rehabilitate myself and get on board with scary films. This has proved an excellent decision and I’ve seen a whole load of great stuff I otherwise wouldn’t have, most recently I went to see low budget Horror flick It Follows.

Jay is a 19 year old girl dating the seemingly lovely Hugh. They have what she believes to be an innocent sexual encounter, but afterwards she seems to hallucinate figures walking towards her and can’t shake the feeling that something is out to get her. With the help of her friends Jay tries to get to the bottom of these strange visions and avoid becoming its next victim.

Anyone that’s been on Facebook, owned a mobile phone or had an e-mail address has probably seen a chain message of some kind. They usually tell some kind of horrific story and then end by saying “if you don’t forward this message to 10 people the same fate will befall you!” This is the concept behind It Follows and the results are scarier than you’d think.

It Follows revels in suburban gothic imagery, using Detroit’s indigenous dilapidated buildings to great effect. The result is a striking mix of decaying infrastructure, and the unnerving leafy quiet of residential purlieu that really puts the audience on edge. The camera work further aids the atmosphere with the inclusion of a number of 360° pans that whip round just fast enough to make you question everything you see.

In order to set themselves apart from the crowd, the subversion and omission of genre tropes has become a necessity for Horror film makers recently. Happily, It Follows does both by simultaneously proving and disproving Randy Meeks’ theory that sex in Horror films is fatal. It’s a nice twist on an old trope and it’ll stay with you well after the scares have gone.

Having said that It Follows doesn’t rub it’s meta in your face. It’s a genre-literate film and, whilst the sexual spectre (or randy revenant, whichever you prefer) is refreshingly original, it has a definite lineage behind it. David Robert Mitchell is a Director who wears his influences on his sleeve and this film positively reeks of John Carpenter. The music, the shot composition, the growing sense of dread, the slow, linear momentum of the villain.  Carpenter has proved to be a huge influence on a number of filmmakers recently and I for one, wholeheartedly encourage this.


Maika Monroe is a stand out in a film from a genre not usually know for the quality of it's performances. She's sympathetic and stays on the side of distressed damsel rather than crossing over into being the maker of moronic decisions. The rest of the cast don't quite match her levels of nuance but none of them are irritating enough for the audience to wish them into cannon fodder.

There’s a lovely nod to 1942’s Cat People as the film gathers momentum towards the finish line, but things come to a crashing halt when an almost entirely unexplained final show down punctures the carefully constructed atmosphere. It Follows ends on a high with an utterly superb parting shot but it’s hard not to feel let down by a film that does brilliantly for three quarters of its run time but messes up its grand finale.

It Follows is probably one of the most interesting cinematic conversations about sex in recent years. The sub-textual discussion of the way youth imagines sex is fascinating but it’s packaged in such a way that you’ll be jumping out your seat and checking over your shoulder for the promiscuous poltergeist all the way home. It’s not as ground breaking as some would have you believe but what it is, is really good.

Ok, let’s have some…

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)

1. It’s been out for a little while now but there’s a teaser trailer for the new Fantastic Four film. Fantastic Four (or FantFourStic as I’m petulantly calling it) is an interesting one because it’s pretty much been deemed a lost cause already. After seeing the trailer though, I’m not so sure it should be. My ever-increasing crush on Miles Teller aside, I really think we should go into this one with an open mind.

The cast look great, they all have good track records, Josh Trank is an interesting,  young talent (in spite of the found-footage tag the relationships in Chronicle are one of its best assets) and nothing in this teaser gives us cause for alarm. I mean it’s not as if the existing films are masterpieces, let’s give it a chance :-)

2. You may or may not be aware that I’m a daughter of the Midlands and the lack of midlands based media is a constant thorn in my side. Enter my hero Caitlin Moran and her sister Caz who have put their heads together and penned Raised By Wolves, a Channel 4 show about girls from a poor family growing up in Wolverhampton. Needless to say it’s utterly brilliant. The first episode aired on Monday so if you missed it catch up on 4OD.

That’s it for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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P.S I’ve managed to sneak some of my ramblings on to Den of Geek again. This time I’ve been complaining about people telling me I can’t complain about things :-)