 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: It Follows • Year: 2014 • Country: USA • Director: David Robert Mitchell • Main cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi • Runtime: 100 minutes • Production company: Northern Lights Films, Animal Kingdom, Two Flints • TRAILER |
(be aware, dear reader, this review contains spoilers!)
I’ve been hearing about this film since it appeared on the official section of Sitges Film Festival in 2014. Last month, in the middle of a conversation about horror in movies, still someone made a reference to “It Follows” regarding it’s capacity to create a convincing atmosphere of fear. Following his words, the success was mainly achieved by the indefiniteness of the monster. Maybe I wouldn’t go that far, since the creature certainly has a form, not leaving all to our imagination (the one that creates the scariest fears), but I would certainly agree that it has some distinctive characteristics (among them the unidentifiable) that make this monster scarier than average.
Of course we’re talking about a horror movie with influences of classics like Halloween (1978) from John Carpenter or A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) from Wes Craven, but still it finds it’s way to differentiate from them. I would say that both film and creature share a common feature: they have an intimidating feel without appealing to fangs and jaws. I would say the director is not explicit, he just shows exactly what he believes we should see, and that leaves a lot of suspense in the middle, a lot of silence, of questions, of waiting, that creates the agony that develops in fear, and scares us when planned, approaching us, the spectators, to the teenagers in the movie.
I also find the choice of teenagers as the main characters in great accordance to the plot. For who a disease that is acquired sexually could be more terrible,? Who would be more vulnerable, and for who would be more terrific such a curse, implying strong moral decisions in order to keep oneself alive? We can’t move from the sofa, they can’t go much further than their neighbourhood, and we all know, although it’s a slow monster, it never stops walking towards us. This constancy, but most of all, the impossibility to make things quicker and finish with us all at once -and that’s it, end of the story- the fact of being able to hold it up, by different means, just enlarges the pain and the feeling one could be suffering for his hole life, waiting for the moment to come. Even some minutes can become a hell of a waiting. And it may be coming slowly, but can always catch you by surprise… and it can be anybody!! The personification of death, and the unknown… that’s really scary.
Not only the principles of the story are well build, but also the ambient it recreates. Without a specific time set, the reminiscence but non concreteness of the 60’s – 80’s leave open the possibility that everything has been a dream. In fact, it seems that the movie’s main concept derives from a nightmare that director David Robert Mitchell used to have recurrently, where he was pursued steadily by a predator walking slowly towards him. In any case, I find the dream mood a good way to distance the story from reality, and those old cars and new technology mixed, everything bathed in a gloomy streetlight… it all confers a personality to the images. And it’s just beautiful, a very beautiful horror movie that had an overwhelmingly positive reception on his release, and that I hope can keep a place in the movie history shelves.
RATE: 7,5/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3235888/
