Will Follow You Around

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2015)

It Follows is a unique horror-movie experience. Instead of effects- heavy monsters, computer trickery, and massive amounts of gore, it relies on refreshingly old-fashioned cinematic techniques to effectively overwhelm its audience. It's a suburban teen horror film that has more in common with the likes of The Shining than with Halloween. An impressive little indie thriller that earns its shrieks and squirms in honest ways, equal parts poetic and intensely scary, It deserves to be seen. The setup of the plot is genuinely difficult to find a way out of: what if a seemingly innocent night of sexual intimacy led to a zombie like creature following you around, and the only way to rid yourself of this ominous being is to pass it on to someone else? We all know the horror trope, that having sex will lead to that characters death, but the message here is more pointed than most. More than just a simple warning about STDs, It Follows has a strangely strong anti-promiscuous sex message. It does this through relatively flat performances and almost goofily slow pacing at times, but more often through spine-chilling imagery that is the stuff of nightmares. Young director Mitchell, an alum of FSU, is definitely a guy to watch out for. His script is good, but the sights and sounds, the two physical senses used when experiencing any film, of this thing are a piece of technical perfection. Beautiful long takes and shots, perfect use of sound against silence, and a big, dissonant score that is the best in a long time help create an event that will follow you long after you leave the theatre.