It Follows

One of the weaker cinema visits this year. I didn't research anything about It Follows beforehand, I didn't even watch the trailer, so I had no expectations, but it's not a very scary horror experience, much less an orgasmic one. On the plus side, there is a fairly original theme and a decent soundtrack that is solidly thumping in places, but I can find a lot more minuses here. The biggest downside is the ending, which explains absolutely nothing, says absolutely nothing, it just pisses me off. Then there’s the visuals, the film literally looks like a Czech film, it has no visual or make-up effects, there’s only normal people – even the negative ones – only without clothes. Moreover, the landscape, the furniture, everything looks purely Czech, from which I deduced, that the film was not at all demanding to make, any skilled Czech director could have made a similar thing without any problem, probably only the soundtrack would not have been so impressive. The film is also quite long, in places it looks more like a drama, there are only about three good atmospheric scenes and to make matters worse, there is also the absence of jump scares. (only the scene in a swimming pool was a pleasure). An attempt to set a new direction, but for me rather unsuccessful. 55% (05/01/2015)

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. (03/22/2020)

The Christian fundamentalist right in the USA once again came up with a plan on how to strike a deadly blow to sin, and they realized that they should use more modern methods when addressing the young generation. So they paid David Mitchell and he crafted a script on how one's first sexual experience can unleash the worst demons and destroy those who wanted to have some fun and sin a little bit. It's definitely not clever or impressive to me. There are much better films in this genre, so why waste time with this? Overall impression: 25%. (04/23/2017)

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. (07/22/2016)

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] (06/20/2018)