Director/writer: David Robert Mitchell
Photography: Mike Gioulakis
Music: Disasterpeace
Editor: Julio C. Perez IV
Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Sovatto, Lili Sepe, Olivia Luccardi, Jake Weary, Bailey Spry
Strictly speaking, It Follows is not a horror show in the slasher mode. Supernatural elements abound. It’s set in Detroit, not some forest with a nearby campground. There is no final girl. Even the big bad knives that give the slasher subgenre its name go missing here. But It Follows is fully onboard with the idea that no teen sexual activity should ever go unpunished. The equation is simple: teen sexual activity leads to swift and brutal death, no exceptions. Or, as IMDb puts it in a pithy summary: “A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter.”
But there’s more than just that to this moody doomy premise. An additional wrinkle provides that the unknown supernatural force tracks you to your death. It might look like a stranger. It might look like someone you know. It moves slow but sure. You can run away from it but it never stops coming for you—unless you have sex with someone else, in which case it goes after that person. However, if it gets that person, murdering them in some suitably grotesque way, then it’s coming for you next. That’s all there is to it. You’re back where you started.
Strictly speaking, It Follows is not a horror show in the slasher mode. Supernatural elements abound. It’s set in Detroit, not some forest with a nearby campground. There is no final girl. Even the big bad knives that give the slasher subgenre its name go missing here. But It Follows is fully onboard with the idea that no teen sexual activity should ever go unpunished. The equation is simple: teen sexual activity leads to swift and brutal death, no exceptions. Or, as IMDb puts it in a pithy summary: “A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter.”
But there’s more than just that to this moody doomy premise. An additional wrinkle provides that the unknown supernatural force tracks you to your death. It might look like a stranger. It might look like someone you know. It moves slow but sure. You can run away from it but it never stops coming for you—unless you have sex with someone else, in which case it goes after that person. However, if it gets that person, murdering them in some suitably grotesque way, then it’s coming for you next. That’s all there is to it. You’re back where you started.
There’s a certain kind of satisfying if sickening mathematical precision which also incidentally does a lot to ratchet up suspense. If the beast gets your last lover, you know you’re next. You haven’t gotten away yet. How many people must you dally with before you’re safe? What if anything do you say about it to your sex partners? And what the hell is this thing anyway? These and many other questions are asked in It Follows, but not necessarily answered, which has a lot to do with how effective it is.
It's based on a recurring nightmare that director and writer David Robert Mitchell would have, in which something scary stalked him, continually walking slowly toward him. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s generally the way George Romero’s zombies menace people. Mitchell has been around and written and/or directed a handful of other pictures (Under the Silver Lake, The Myth of the American Sleepover, Flowervale Street). But It Follows is his most famous, riding the simple, ingenious premise for all it’s worth.
Mitchell has a good sense for when to hold back just enough to amp up anxiety. He trains us to look behind his main characters for people following them. The main characters spend a lot of time looking back over their shoulders too. Sometimes the beast appears as an old woman, sometimes as a stranger their age. Sometimes it’s just someone who happens to be walking nearby and is not trying to scare them.
The picture is relentless, insidious, and somehow mesmerizing. All the most obvious taboos of sex are at work. As always, they are not enough to hold teen sexual urgency at bay. When the body wants sex it must have sex, as we all know. Morals and ethical guidelines are fine and good but too often weak in the clinch, as we also all know. So it’s easy to sympathize with the plight of these young folks. It’s always easy to regret later. And it doesn’t have to be a supernatural entity—more often it’s an unwanted pregnancy.
Thus the metaphors are rich and plain here. It’s the one thing you want to do most and it’s the one thing that can cause you the most pain, later. What do you do? You probably do it, fuck it anyway, it feels too good. And then the troubles start. The precision of the retribution is common to many horror movies, such as The Ring, in which looking at a forbidden video leads to your death in seven days’ time. In both cases the kids know basically what they’re dealing with, even if, understandably, they might have a hard time believing it.
I also like that It Follows is set in Detroit, like Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and the more recent Barbarian (2022). Detroit has become a spooky presence all on its own, with whole blocks and neighborhoods abandoned and reclaimed by nature. Some buildings remain standing in some sections, crumbling away, not remotely suitable for occupation. It’s the city below 8 Mile Rd. to most of these kids, who live in the suburbs, an exotic place to visit for cheap thrills before returning to the safeties of home and garden suburbs. The contrast couldn’t be more stark, the line dividing them more brutally apparent. These kids cross it, back and forth, barely suspecting what they might be in for.
I was impressed with It Follows the first time I saw it years ago, and I’m happy to see that it basically stands up as a terrific ride. Makes me think I should maybe get to the rest of Mitchell’s catalog sooner rather than later.
It's based on a recurring nightmare that director and writer David Robert Mitchell would have, in which something scary stalked him, continually walking slowly toward him. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s generally the way George Romero’s zombies menace people. Mitchell has been around and written and/or directed a handful of other pictures (Under the Silver Lake, The Myth of the American Sleepover, Flowervale Street). But It Follows is his most famous, riding the simple, ingenious premise for all it’s worth.
Mitchell has a good sense for when to hold back just enough to amp up anxiety. He trains us to look behind his main characters for people following them. The main characters spend a lot of time looking back over their shoulders too. Sometimes the beast appears as an old woman, sometimes as a stranger their age. Sometimes it’s just someone who happens to be walking nearby and is not trying to scare them.
The picture is relentless, insidious, and somehow mesmerizing. All the most obvious taboos of sex are at work. As always, they are not enough to hold teen sexual urgency at bay. When the body wants sex it must have sex, as we all know. Morals and ethical guidelines are fine and good but too often weak in the clinch, as we also all know. So it’s easy to sympathize with the plight of these young folks. It’s always easy to regret later. And it doesn’t have to be a supernatural entity—more often it’s an unwanted pregnancy.
Thus the metaphors are rich and plain here. It’s the one thing you want to do most and it’s the one thing that can cause you the most pain, later. What do you do? You probably do it, fuck it anyway, it feels too good. And then the troubles start. The precision of the retribution is common to many horror movies, such as The Ring, in which looking at a forbidden video leads to your death in seven days’ time. In both cases the kids know basically what they’re dealing with, even if, understandably, they might have a hard time believing it.
I also like that It Follows is set in Detroit, like Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and the more recent Barbarian (2022). Detroit has become a spooky presence all on its own, with whole blocks and neighborhoods abandoned and reclaimed by nature. Some buildings remain standing in some sections, crumbling away, not remotely suitable for occupation. It’s the city below 8 Mile Rd. to most of these kids, who live in the suburbs, an exotic place to visit for cheap thrills before returning to the safeties of home and garden suburbs. The contrast couldn’t be more stark, the line dividing them more brutally apparent. These kids cross it, back and forth, barely suspecting what they might be in for.
I was impressed with It Follows the first time I saw it years ago, and I’m happy to see that it basically stands up as a terrific ride. Makes me think I should maybe get to the rest of Mitchell’s catalog sooner rather than later.
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