It Follows (2014 - David Robert Mitchell): **½

Rating: 5/10 (21 March 2016)

With allusions to STDs and all else that casual sex entails, It Follows is a promising piece of Cronenbergian body horror that falls flat at the end. The setup is remarkably simple and the threat is unsettling: to rid yourself of the stalking demon picked up from your last sexual encounter, infect another. The film is at its best when it allows the presence to slowly draw closer to its intended victim, rather than relying on the lesser interesting slasher aspects the work sometimes falls prey to. After a chilling first hour, the climax of the film sorely disappoints. While we could plausibly believe that the enemy is purely an intangible supernatural presence, perhaps a figment of the imagination, a physical confrontation at the climax takes away much of the trepidation that the film had built up during its opening two-thirds. Despite its potentially hokey setup, the story never felt cheesy until the final encounter.