Casting The Runes

Rating: 7/10 (12 May 2015)

" The scariest American horror film in years" and if you're coming out with hyperbole like that you'd better have a damn good movie to go with that type of marketing . That is until you stop to consider that America has been seriously on the back foot when it comes to the horror genre in the last decade and is content to do either horror porn or remakes . I'm wracking my brains and I think the last American horror film to impress me was THE MIST and that was made about seven or eight years ago . On top of that if a mere horror film comes with hype it usually ruins it for me . I thought THE BABADOOK was okay but again that was hyped to high heaven which meant my expectations weren't really matched with the feedback it received from others . IT FOLLOWS has the same sort of acclaim that I instinctively thought would work against it
!!!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!!!
To be fair writer/director David Robert Mitchell knows how to draw in an audience and opens the film with a good hook - a young woman exits her house obviously terrified and a couple of minutes later the plot thread comes to a conclusive end with a stark , chilling image . From the outset the film shows that it's not a studio picture and it has independent roots which I'm happy to see the likes of the Academy Awards recognise the spirit of independent movie making even if they're hardly likely to hand out nominations and awards to horror movies . Don't get me wrong , I'm not saying IT FOLLOWS should have been up for Best Picture . I'm just saying independent is much more respected these days
One thing Mitchell seems to have borrowed from greatly is the MR James story Casting The Runes adapted for cinema in 1957 under the name NIGHT OF THE DEMON and here we see a similar type of story featuring an adolescent girl with sex used as a plot device . It's a reworking of the "horny teenagers in peril" but works very well for the most part . I say for the most part because the pacing isn't brilliant but Mitchell brings a brooding creepy atmosphere to the film and is helped by good use of amorphous music and when the horror parts happen they rather unsettling . In short it's a fairly good film but the downside is tags such as"Horror masterpiece" and "Scariest film in years" possibly raise expectations just that little bit too high