It Follows

An old-school picture. It works on so many aspects (characters, dialogues, music, building-up of suspense and fear) newer horror films often fail to properly handle. How could I not appreciate this flick? A pity the creators haven’t played a bit more with the pursuers’ look, but apart from that, I’m delighted with all the rest. Interestingly, D. R. Mitchell managed to create this wonderful horror film without any jump scare – and with a brilliantly built-up atmosphere! [KVIFF 2014] (19/06/2018)

Brilliant minimalism. How sumptuous a genre horror film can look when it sets two simple rules that it sticks to dutifully from start to finish! David Robert Mitchell has won my great fondness, mainly because he has managed to make one hell of a genre entry for two million using a specific retro-analog atmosphere and a homogenous script. And that the soundtrack is very reminiscent of Carpenter's classics or Argento's giallo pieces is probably no coincidence. (06/03/2020)

The film follows its inspirations quite flamboyantly, but it's also not afraid to go its own way. Therefore, the only thing that really comes to mind is why the adults in the story are glossed over with such vigor and why we don't know more about the gentleman in the photo - in that case, it would have been a decent crawl at the end and not just a flowing breast-stroke. (14/08/2015)

Two decades of my favorite genre on one plate. Intense music and street Steadicams of the early Carpenter, sometimes escalating into giallo-like psychedelics, working with the mystery of a hidden horror like a modern version of The Ring, while preserving the narrative logic and believable behavior of the characters. Moreover, the horror is spread by sex between attractive teenagers led by a pretty, delicate blonde, and is not a form of pleasure, but an act of guilty suffering. In addition, we get to enjoy the dark setting of the ghost-town parts of Detroit. It Follows is a delicacy for genre connoisseurs that could have been the best horror-movie event of the decade had the brilliant blend of historical directions been crowned by a visionary outlining of a new path. ****1/2 (20/04/2015)

I wasn't that impressed with It Follows, but I still think it's at least an average horror film. I think it would have been better if it had been shortened a bit because not much happens in the hundred minutes that it couldn't have been cut by twenty minutes. Moreover, I think that in such a case the atmosphere could be even more oppressive. (22/07/2016)