Going Out on a Date, Returning with a Curse

Maika Monroe as Jay in "It Follows"

In terms of horror movies, we’re in a time where a well-made horror film can be difficult to come by, and most of the time, we have to resort to re-watching the classics if we want to get our share of horror that will stick in our brains and make us quiver.

In David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows,” he brings a horror movie that does more than set out to scare us, but one that wants to have us talk about it with our friends long after it’s over.

One night, college student Jay (Maika Monroe) goes on a date with her new boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary).  After they drive to a deserted area of town and get intimate in his car, he knocks her out with chloroform.  When Jay wakes up tied to a chair, Hugh reveals that he passed on a curse to her, which will haunt her and kill her unless she finds someone to make love to and pass it to that person.  Jay soon recruits the help of her friends to find a way to defeat this mysterious curse.

Maika Monroe’s performance is one that effectively displays her character’s fear and courage concerning her dilemma.  She presents her character as a very innocent young woman in the film’s beginning, serenely relaxing in a pool and looking like she’s at ease with everything around her.  This makes us feel all the more sorry for her when she’s suddenly thrown into this strange and terrifying situation.  Similar to other female protagonists of classic horror movies, Monroe’s character is proactive in trying to defeat the evil that’s chasing her and becomes braver as she goes further into her task of fighting off the curse.

Michael Gioulakis’ cinematography makes great use of long takes, especially in the film’s very unsettling opening shot, where we follow a girl as she’s running from an unseen paranormal terror.  The use of long takes as they linger on their subjects gives the disquieting feeling of stalking the characters, similar to the curse itself.  In some instances, Gioulakis also employs 360-degree panning shots that give us the sensation that the terror can come from any direction.

The movie has a distinct ‘80s horror-movie feel, and the score by Disasterpeace certainly contributes to that.  The menacing and dreamlike score is certainly one of the most unsettling we’ll hear in any modern horror movie, and it adds considerably to the highly eerie atmosphere.

Although the screenplay by Mitchell has a premise that could strike people as a very B-movie plot, it’s handled with a great deal of cleverness as it takes the familiar horror-movie element of teen intimacy and adds an intelligent twist to it.  As we’re watching the film, it’s obvious what the curse is a symbol for, but we walk out of the movie with a couple of theories pertaining to the directions in which this symbol can go, and it’s bound to have viewers analyzing it, especially when it comes to the ending.

Mitchell applies some jump scares occasionally, but the film doesn’t lower itself to overusing them.  Instead, it relies on aspects such as camera movements, music, and mood, and he knows how to utilize these moviemaking tools to make us nervous with dread of what might happen next.  

With “It Follows,” he provides horror fans with a film that’s both enjoyably chilling and has the ability to open up a dialogue among viewers.  So, check out this film with your horror-fan friends and join in on the discussion.

Final grade: A-