Some originality in what could be first entry in a franchise

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2015)

Jay has backseat sex with odd boyfriend Hugh, at which point he reveals to her that he has passed on a kind of curse: Jay will be pursued by some sort of entity which only she can see, which has in mind killing her brutally (as we have seen in an opening sequence). It only walks, so she can speed away from it in a variety of ways, but it never stops. She can pass on this curse by having sex with someone else: if it kills them then it reverts back to her and so on, back down the line. Her disbelieving friends are, nevertheless, supportive.
I have watched quite a lot of horror films over the years, and it is unusual to encounter one which is a little bit different. It Follows is a very simple concept (as someone else has pointed out, it is about a sexually transmitted haunting), and is delivered well. The opening sequence shows that the director is not afraid to present graphically explicit gore on screen: the rest of the film shows that he doesn't feel it necessary to do so. And quite rightly. He has created a "monster" which generates the same dread as Schwarzenegger's Terminator in the original movie – an unemotional and unstoppable entity, nightmarishly implacable, and intent on nothing at all other than the destruction of our sympathetic protagonist.
There are several effective set pieces, set in and around some of Detroit's less salubrious areas (even the residential area where Jay lives is unlikely to feature in Detroit Tourist Board commercials), and the general drabness adds to the pessimistic and downbeat air of the movie, as does the unsettling music, not to mention the three sex scenes which are all equally unlovely and unloving. The unknown cast all do very well.
I can see this garnering some criticism for its relatively leisurely pace and for the absence of much in the way of in-your-face horror trimmings: such criticisms are likely to come from the modern generation who demand up-front explicitness, which is not what this film is about at all.
I look forward to a sequel which, I hope, will explore the origin of this curse.