Great throwback to 70's horror, very clever and a genuinely frightening experience

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2015)

A horror movie is like a roller coaster. It's scary, but you're having fun because you know that it's perfectly safe. The scarier it gets, the more entertaining it is because it pulls you deeper into the story until you forget entirely that you're in the theatre watching a piece of fiction. I just saw "The Babadook" a week ago and I didn't expect to see another great horror film in at least a year but Christmas (or is it Halloween?) has come early because "It Follows" is here and it's a truly frightening film. I loved it.
The premise is simple and yet so ingenious. After Jay (Meika Monroe) has sex with Hugh (Jake Weary), a boy she has been dating and likes quite a bit, he gives her a grave bit of news. She's now the carrier of a curse. In the distance, invisible to everyone except those who have been afflicted, is something. This thing, whatever it is, is coming for her. It doesn't move quickly, but it's relentless. It won't ever stop until Jay passes the curse onto someone else, or is dead.
This picture is going to be interpreted in a lot of different ways. To me, this is a story about the thing that everyone fears the most, death. You can avoid it for a while if you stay smart, you eat well and you exercise regularly... but it's still coming. It's not even as simple as just keeping an eye out for your inevitable demise and moving out of the way at the last second either because no one knows how they're going to die. No one is going to be able to keep an eye out for you (because in this instance, the monster is invisible to everyone else) and you might not know that you're about to die until it's too late.
A detail that you need to know about this monster is that if you're cursed, you can see it... but you don't really know what it looks like because it's a shape shifter. It can look like anyone and the only giveaway is that it's always walking in a straight line towards you. This aspect, the fact that you can see it coming is where the cinematography of this movie comes in. This movie will make you insanely paranoid because you will never know for sure if the monster is on-screen. Every time you see someone walking and they're not interacting with anyone else, you will begin to feel a creeping chill up your spine. "Please don't let it get any closer, please, SOMEONE notice that some stranger is walking towards the camera!" It's absolutely nerve-wracking because of the fact that it doesn't run, or wield a big butcher knife or anything like that. It just walks. The slow speed brings in an element of hope that evenly spreads the terror throughout the entire film like peanut butter on a slice of toast. It seems like it would be so easy to get away from it, or even to get rid of the curse. I mean look at it, it's so slow! The problem is that it never stops. If you start running through traffic in an attempt to get away and you get hit by a car, it's still coming at the same pace. If you try to steal a bike, you get caught by the police and then thrown in jail, that cell won't protect you because you know this thing is going to gain ground as you wait sentencing. It looks like your only hope is to pray that you figure out a way to take it down, you spot it early enough to keep moving or you damn someone else to this horrible fate to save yourself.
A big part of this movie is the cinematography. On the big screen, I found myself constantly looking around trying to see if the creature approaching was approaching somewhere in the distance, or hiding behind some fence or bush. But wait a second, why would I want to see it? Is it because the reassurance that I can identify it makes it less frightening? Not really because that means it's getting closer. Which one is worse then, the fact that I CAN see it, meaning that I know to run, or that I can't see it, which means that either it's only a matter of time before it arrives, or that I've failed to recognize it? There's a whole lot of atmosphere generate by the way the movie is shot, but also by the score. The music here brings me back to some of my favourite horror films. I'm talking about pictures like "Halloween" and "Assault on Precinct 13" where the score doesn't give you hints of what is about to happen or how you're supposed to feel as much as it reminds you that there is nowhere that is truly safe and that you need to pay attention because any oversight could mean a painful and gruesome death.
I loved the story, so simple and to-the-point while still having some fun with its premise and plenty of intelligent developments. I liked the characters because they were intelligent and had at least a theoretical chance of surviving (unlike in so many slasher films where the villain is going to win, or at least be back for the sequel for sure). I loved the music because it perfectly captured and amplified how I felt as I grasped the gravity of the situation. I can't say enough good things about the overall execution, which demonstrates that a horror movie can be more than cheap jump scares and senseless gore thrown left and right. It's the simple, memorable and chilling imagery that still haunts me right now as I type this. I found "It Follows" to be immensely frightening and I can't wait to watch it again. (Theatrical version on the big screen, April 2, 2015)