John Carpenter and Nicholas Winding Refn had a baby

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2015)

My love for this kind of film started a long time ago. From the first Freddy or Jason film to John Carpenter masterpieces like HALLOWEEN or PRINCE OF DARKNESS, "IT FOLLOWS" captures similar beautiful minimalism in both its dialog and score as does its predecessors. Is the film original? YES. There are not many sexually-transmitted disease horror films out there. There are horror films that have a sexual drive to their plot like TEETH, but this film manages to find a new avenue to combine sex and terror, which is like finding a new place to put cheese on a pizza.
I am going to tell you why this film IS a modern-day masterpiece: The film's opening scene is not something that you understand until after your first viewing. We are thrust into a scene that has a young girl in high heels and casual hang-out-in-my-bed clothing. At first, the viewer is forced to ask questions like, "Why is she running around?" or "Why doesn't she get help from the lady who asks her if she needs help?" or "Why does she tell her dad everything is OK when everything obviously is NOT OK?" and last but not least, "Why is she wearing stiletto heals to run in?" After the movie was over for my first view of it, I re-watched the film. At the beginning, all my questions had answers. She was in her room watching out her window for IT. Seeing it approaching her house from enough distance to get away from IT, she grabs (in a mad panic) the first pair of shoes she can slip on her feet so she doesn't run on the asphalt barefoot (she didn't have time to go looking for shoes that made sense). This is the genius of the director. He is literally showing us what it is like to be followed by IT from the standpoint of the "safe" onlooker who cannot see IT. Watching someone run around in no general direction or pattern in heels looking back every 2 seconds like she is being chased by something terrible that is not there is pretty crazy-looking. You, as the spectator (like the woman unloading groceries from her van) are forced to ask the girl questions. "Are you OK?" Next, she waits across the street, waiting for the slow-walking (invisible to us) IT to follow her far enough down the road that she can run back across the street and get her car keys which she forgot to grab the first run outside. She drives a good ways away from her house and sits on the ground in front of her car with the car lights on. Her dad calls to check on her and she apologizes for being a bad child. Evidently, she is tired of running and NOT willing to have sex with anyone to pass it on, so she surrenders to IT. The next shot is of her dead on shore with her leg snapped in half at the knee and it looks like her other leg was mauled too.
This opening reveals everything possible from the IT. IT moves slowly. IT is deadly. IT must be passed on or it will kill you. IT is invisible to everyone except to the one IT is following.
In line at the theater, Jay wants to play a game where you pick someone you wish you could trade places with and see if the other person can guess who you picked. Jay's date picks a little boy drinking at a water fountain with his dad, while Jay picks someone inside the actual theater. When her date tries to point out who she possibly picked, he picks IT. IT is a girl in a yellow dress that Jay CANNOT see! Her date is infected with IT. He makes up some quick excuse to leave so he can escape IT from touching him. He lies and says he felt ill and that he needed to get outside where he feels better. Evidently fed up with being chased everywhere, completely different from the girl at the beginning, Jay's date makes the immoral choice to pass IT to her when she initiates wanting to go back to the car and have sex with him. He shows us that he was planning on passing IT to her that night anyway by keeping a rag with chloroform in the trunk (which he uses on her). Strapping her into a wheelchair (also in his trunk) he waits for IT to come so he can see if IT is after him or her. And he wants her to see IT so that she can see he is not crazy and to follow his instructions to pass it on to get rid of IT.
That is as far into the film as I will take you. But I can tell you that every shot is a poster shot. Every use of the score is amazing. The atmosphere created by the director is much like DRIVE had with the nice angles, the use of nature and water, and several scenes with cars. The music reminded me of like a TROMA film. Like a score that almost is making fun of a John Carpenter score rather than an actual mimic. But, do not get me wrong...this film is serious throughout and has nothing campy at all in it.
While DRIVE was a beautiful violent film...IT FOLLOWS is a beautiful horror film.