Appropriately Creepy

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2015)

On the creepiness factor - which is probably the most important element in a movie like this - "It Follows" works brilliantly. For me, what has made a lot of teen horror movies major disappointments is that they've settled into little more than blood and gore fests, where you spend most of your time waiting for the next kid to bite the dust. But a lot of those movies lack the proper atmosphere. This one sets that mood of creepiness over gore right from the start; the moment when Jay (Maika Monroe) wakes up bound and confined to a wheelchair in a parking lot, while the guy she had just had sex with and who chloroformed her after (which was a twist in itself) explains that the sex passed on a curse to her that she could only rid herself of by having sex with someone else. And "it" - the curse - stalks her for the rest of the movie, as her friends try to help her.
It's a pretty simple plot, and it worked well. Nothing about the curse (except how to get rid of it) was ever explained. It was just a mystery, and that lack of understanding just heightened everything. For this kind of movie, there was surprisingly little nudity, and almost no blood. Instead - surprise - the movie revolved around an actual story, which was very refreshing. On an entirely different level, you could look at this as a warning about the potential danger of casual sex, I suppose.
Monroe's performance as Jay was very convincing, and the musical score quite effective. I did keep scratching my head wondering where all these kids' parents were. Or perhaps that was another subtle warning - this one about the danger of absentee parents.
Basically, very well done all round. One of the better horror movies made in recent years. (7/10)