‘The Ring’ on Elm Street…
Along with The Babadook, It Follows was widely heralded as one of the best horror films of 2014. Whilst not quite deserving of the praise that was heaped on it, It Followsstill does enough to stand out in a genre so often bereft of ideas.
Boasting a truly original and ingenious concept It Followsis not for the faint hearted. A terrible demon passes from one person to another through sexual intercourse. Happily this is not a thinly veiled allegory for STD’s as it first appears. There actually is no message as such to take away here, it is a character study with solid performances at it’s heart. The young cast does really well with what is it at times a daft script. This is a breath of fresh air when taking into account an all teen cast.
While the setting is never revealed beyond it being somewhere in Michigan, this could easily be Halloween’s Haddonfield or A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Springwood such is the vintage feel to It Follows. Mixing archaic and new technology as well as the lush, old school cinematography makes for an unsettlingly weird viewing experience akin to Ti West’s The House of the Devil.
The arresting visual style plus the nods to it’s influences set It Follows aside from many of it’s peers. It is a shame then that the film loses momentum in the third act leading to an anti climactic conclusion.
It Follows is weird, unnerving, and memorable and it harks back to horror’s classic era of the 70’s and 80’s. Director David Robert Mitchell has the potential to make a classic of his own if he carries on in this vein.