The Weekend Review: It Follows

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

Going into the movie, all that I knew about It Follows I probably could have already guessed from the title: it's a horror movie.  I had no idea what it was actually about, no idea that it was receiving strong word of mouth from those who had seen it and no idea that it was currently enjoying a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  I didn't even know that it was rated R until I was carded at the theater.

And really, if it can be helped, that's the way that I like to go into a movie: completely blind to anything that I couldn't already have guessed from its title (and maybe its poster too).  This goes double for horror, as the genre benefits most from the inherent tension of the unknown.  And while It Follows was certainly an intriguing exercise in independent horror, it never quite came together the same way that similarly styled genre entries - like The Babadook - have in the recent past.

When Jay finally sleeps with her boyfriend, she becomes the target of a shape shifting supernatural entity.  Although slow, it follows her with undeterred persistence and murderous intent: until she sleeps with somebody else and passes it along to them, that is.  But should they die, the creature will once again stalk her.

Although all of the elements were there, It Follows never quite coalesced into a worthwhile horror movie in its own right.  The slowly lumbering creature, invisible to all except for its victims, has all of the incessant dread of Romero's living dead.  Its ability to transform into different people meant that it could literally be anybody.  It also provided its director with the potential for any number of inventive or psychologically-targeted scares.

And then there's the obvious metaphor for the creature.  A slow, but deadly, force, invisible to everybody except for those "infected" by it, which only targets those who have had sex with those already infected by it is an obvious stand-in for sexually transmitted diseases.  It inflates an all too real fear of infection among sexually active adults into a malevolent physical entity, much like The Babadook itself did with depression.

While it's brilliantly conceived, it's somewhat less than brilliantly executed: highlighting the specific challenges that face horror as a genre.  Tense shots are held on for mere moments too long, which sadly proves to be just long enough to ruin the effect that it was building towards.  The realization that the creature isn't merely phantasmal, but has a physically manipulable form, somewhat lessens the inherent terror of it.

Although the creature's ability to transform offered boundless potential to psychologically torture its victims, it never quite capitalizes on the concept.  Why wouldn't the creature take on the form of Jay's boyfriend cum assailant whose post coital abduction understandably reduced her to paranoid hysterics.  When it takes on the form of Jay's presumed father, it ultimately means nothing to us because the film never invested us in any of the character's pasts, only in their supernaturally-charged present.

That's not to say that it's a bad film, just that it doesn't quite live up to the hype surrounding it.  It works better as a metaphor than as a narrative, but even its metaphorical aspects seem incomplete.  There are some genuine moments of terror when the characters can see, but can't quite escape from, their assailant - particularly when Jay is first chased by the creature through the corridors of her school - but those are too few and far between to amount to a good horror movie.

If you liked The Babadook, there's doubtlessly some aspects of It Follows that will appeal to you.  The metaphorical nature of the creature make it a far more intelligent take on supernatural horror than most other would-be screamers right off the bat.  Its R-rating keep it from the tameness inherent to most mainstream genre entries.  On the whole, though, I can't quite bring myself to recommend this to the general public.

Rating:  4/10

Buy on BluRay:  No.

So what is your favorite metaphorical horror movie?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Join the Filmquisition on Twitter (@Filmquisition) or by subscribing to this blog.