A truly great modern horror film

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2015)

Out of the horror movies made in the 2000's-2010's that I've seen, I think this is the only one that I would call great. The film doesn't really put a strong focus on scaring you to death, but more so puts a focus on creeping you out and giving you an anxiety attack for an hour and forty minutes. The premise of the movie is that there is this thing, "it", if you will, and "it" follows you. It will never stop following you and if it catches you, then you're dead. It can look like anybody. It could be someone you know or a random person in a crowd. The only way to get rid of it is to have sex with someone else, but if "it" kills the person you gave it to, then "it" will come back for you. The one benefit (I guess this is a benefit) is that it only walks toward you. It doesn't run or teleport. It simply walks. You can probably see why this movie makes you more anxious than terrified based on this premise. The entire time you're thinking "Is that it? Is that the thing?". It'll drive you nuts, I guarantee it. This movie does a lot of other things right as well. The director has said this movie was supposed to be a nice throwback older horror movies and he did it quite well. The soundtrack sounds like it came straight from the 80's. It reminded me of Halloween the most. Not only does the soundtrack just serve as a throwback, but it also sets the tone of this film perfectly. It makes certain scenes 10x creepier. Thankfully, there wasn't the "car won't start in time of need" cliché and there were no slutty characters. Both are rather small things granted, but I'm happy they weren't annoyingly stuck in the movie. Only issue I have are with the rules of "it". You get "it" from having sex with a person who had "it" following them. Okay, fine. But what if it's gay or lesbian sex? How would that work? What if it's an animal? Or a dead body? Does oral count? How about anal? Do you get it from the penetration or from ejaculation? In the end these questions don't really matter, but I would have really liked to get an answer. Ah, it doesn't affect my opinion of the movie too much. I'd still say go see it.