Misled

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2015)

(Rating: ☆☆ out of 4)
This film is not recommended.
In brief: An admirable attempt at rebooting the horror genre that gets lost in translation.
GRADE: C+
Teenagers + Sex = Death. The Unholy Three make a deadly combination whenever horror films are concerned. Pay heed: Have sex and you will become the next victim! Freddy, Michael, or Leatherface will absolve you from sin with a quick slice-and dice maneuver. It's the movie code. The latest supernatural fright-fest, It Follows, takes that common premise for a little spin. Oh, sex is still on the menu, but now, it can possibly save your life, making a no- win situation into a win-win. Let me explain without giving too much away.
￼Maika Monroe plays Jay, the teen in peril as an invisible force is set to kill her off. She has been cursed via a sexual transmitted encounter with her boyfriend. Now, a shape-shifting apparition will follow her to her death unless she can find another sexual partner to infect ASAP to stop this chain reaction. It is this dilemma that becomes the basis for the film and its minimal scares.
David Robert Mitchell shows promise. He is more skilled as a director than screenwriter. He gives his low budget film some nice highs with his strong imagery and adds moody suspenseful sequences that owe a great deal to John Carpenter and Wes Craven. Complete with an effective synthesized score to ratchet up the tension, the film has an eerie nightmarish atmosphere. Mitchell wisely downplays the monster, leaving much to the viewer's imagination. However, he still goes for too many cheap scare tactics with abrupt sound effects that go bump in the night.
￼It Follows doesn't quite follow the formula we moviegoers have come to expect. Which is good. However, what is bad is that the movie loses its focus midway in a script that is in need of some major rewrites, especially when logic is constantly lost along the way. There are too many dumb actions from our heroine and his friends, plus odd anachronistic items that make one wonder about the era and time-frame of the film when one should be more engrossed in the story. (Is it the 60's, 70's, or 80's?) Some leaps of logic occur in the flawed screenplay: Must teenagers always run to a deserted location in the middle of the night when being hunted? Are there any police or adults around to help? Has no one notice some strange deaths that are happening in the community?
￼While there is much to admire in the film's execution, the overall effect plus an unsatisfying ending only make It Follows just another victim in the horror genre.
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