This week I decided to finally watch the 2014 film "It Follows" directed by David Robert Mitchell. After hearing about how good it was and how it is one of the more recent films to stick to 'horror roots,' to say I was excited to see it is an understatement.
The film follows Jay, a young woman who contracts a 'killer STI' after sleeping with someone who only slept with her to get rid of it himself. Not much is known about the virus and the characters don't go the familiar route of speeding a quarter of the film researching the antagonist, a direction I was happy the film didn't take. Instead, most of the film serves as almost an 'impending doom' road trip as the protagonist and her allies must keep moving in order to stay ahead of the killer.
Speaking of the killer, even though the film pitches it as a 'supernatural killer STI' the killer doesn't seem like a scary antagonist, at least not by looking at it alone. Instead, it takes the forms of several people, moving at a slow and foreboding pace as they track down Jay. The catch? Those unaffected with the disease cannot see it meaning that Jay's friends have to trust she hasn't lost it and is making it up, something not everyone in the film does.
Looking outside the narrative, the film is very aesthetically pleasing with the color of the film not only adding to the supernatural elements of the narrative, but also adding a dream-like filter to the entire film. This dream effect is even more enhanced when you look at the production design as what time period this film takes place in. The characters and cars seem to say 1970s but futuristic technologies like a character's 'shell' phone seem to point at something later.
I would definitely recommend this film to anyone looking for something besides your typical slasher this Halloween season as this film, although featuring numerous slasher tropes, doesn't fall under that simple category. Instead, the film invites the viewer to reflect on their own lives as they see the misadventures of Jay and her friends. If something like this happened to me, who would I turn to? Who, like Paul, would trust me unconditionally? Perhaps its questions like these and not the supernatural force that make this film one of the most creative and striking horror films I have seen in recent years.
