It Follows

(49th KVIFF) I’m very happy after the screening at KVIFF. Seeing a good horror movie on a big screen, in a theatre full of people who, considering the circumnstances (the late hour and the booze), behaved well and weren’t a nuisance is not something you see very often. Objectively, I could complain about it being somewhat repetitive, most of the film consists of either how they try to catch the scary spirit or of how they go from one place to another, but these complaints are very well compensated by a premise that is original and entertaining for the genre, the likeable characters (finally, teenage protagonists in a horror movie that aren’t dull chess pieces, but nice young people, and you don’t want anything bad happening to them) and how effective it is overall – the opening sequence already gave me chills, and that feeling repeated itself during the entire 100 minute run. But what’s most valuable is that most of those scenes take place during the day. The climax at the swimming pool and the scene on the beach are some of the moments I will remember at the end of this film year. I was expecting something dirtier given the theme, and more sexually explicit, but It Follows is very lame in this aspect. As the producer said, in some sense it is actually a “pretty” film – the sun shines, the music is nice and the characters love each other. Only that they are followed by a horrifying spirit. (08/07/2014)

Halloween for the XXI century. Unlike Carpenter’s masterpiece, Mitchell doesn’t bring anything particularly new or refreshing to the table, the power and effect of It Follows comes primarily from the way it returns to the prudent and old-fashioned representatives of the genre – there’s no need to create a cool killer and attack the viewer with exhibitions of style, it’s enough to highlight the most natural human needs, making you nervous with the sensation that your space will be breached by an indomitable, mysterious intruder. A very well cast and very beautiful Maika Monroe, a great retro music score and lots of creative awareness, all producing an attractive film space without any concrete period definitions (the cars speak of the 80s while the clothes and the design of the houses are almost identical to the present), without deviating formally from the “slasher” plane towards broader intellectual lines, which the premise smartly attacks. I would have liked a tighter ending, but it does keep its coherence and ambiguity. 85% and the fifth star is because no other horror movie from the entire decade deserves it more. (21/03/2020)

The theme of the film is imaginative and original (yet simple). I like how the director decided not to follow the path of bloody butchery or annoying jump scares and instead shot a horror film in the traditional sense, which is scary due to its atmosphere and shots of a slowly approaching character. The film could have been even scarier and better if it had been at least a little intelligent! The characters in the film act like idiots and their attempts to kill the enemy are ridiculous (what did they want to achieve in that pool scene?). I wonder what would happen if they went to another continent? The premise of the film is excellent and extremely scary, but it does not guarantee exceptionally high-quality horror. (08/07/2014)

A sympathetic horror hipster that works quite well as a "coming of age" story about uncertainty, but worse as a genre piece. The attack attempts by ghosts in make-up are stupid and bring the film down. Although Mitchell has a good sense for visuals, the design (Detroit again) works best when it comes to working with tension and space, but it's not particularly inventive (the scene on the wheelchair is explicitly amateurish). I value the effort to update and the overlap, but the result is only slightly above average. (25/07/2014)

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)