Umm okay

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2015)

Halloween, Friday The 13th, Blair Witch Project...these were indie horror films that set records, created franchises and legends. Minimal budgets with up and coming actors and downright creepy scenes that were legendary. Nowadays, indie horror usually means really awful and It Follows is NOT awful. It doesn't feel low budget and that's a great compliment. Its well shot and has some genuinely good special effects and creepy scenes but it completely lacks the scare factor. There is nothing that really truly got under my skin and freaked me out. The characters are mostly empty although acted well and perhaps the biggest problem is that it feels like it goes on far too long. The pacing is not great. I might be a little harsh on it but I heard a lot of great things about this and a lot of comparisons to the equally hyped Babadook which was also "just okay" It Follows definitely shows a lot of promise and shows a lot of talent in the film making department but as a horror film it just needs a lot of fine tuning. Its a good effort at demonstrating what they're capable of as a film maker but does that make it a good movie?
The cast is okay. Everyone plays their role well enough but no one stands out as the hero. I mean, its clear who our scream queen is supposed to be but Maika Monroe just doesn't have the chops to carry the movie or make us care enough. Her friends all play their roles well enough but this isn't a cast you relate to or even can invest yourself in. Keir Gilchrist, Lili Sepe (who I actually thought showed more charisma than Monroe did), Daniel Zovatto and Jake Weary play decent roles but the script isn't good enough to really let them showcase what they could do.
The film has some creepy scenes and some very nice cinematography but when you go into a film, especially a horror movie, you're not expecting to watch a wanna-be filmmaker trying to prove that he could make a good movie...you just want a good movie. The very inexperienced David Robert Mitchell writes and directs (I always warn about this) and I can say without a doubt that as a director he has a distinctive style and vision. However, he goes out of his way to make sure you see it instead of creating a clever movie and making it his own. The long laborious shots of the run down areas of Detroit are not necessary for this story. The plot itself is very bizarre and the ending is so abrupt that it actually makes you even more angry that you're getting so little out of it in the end. It Follows is okay but really not that much better than your run of the mill straight to DVD horror flick. It was unimpressive and forgettable. 6/10