It Follows

Year: 2015

Genre: Horror

Where do I start? 

One of the biggest problems with modern horror is that we've seen it all before. The same films are churned out year in year out, and the once great genre is in a state of stagnation. Audiences are sick of haunted houses, torture porn has (thank god) died a death, and the iconic antiheroes of the 80's are all but distant memory.

And then a film like this happens. 

The premise is simplicity of the highest order. Something is following you. You don't quite know what that thing is, but wherever you go, it is following you. It can take the form of someone you know, or it can be a complete stranger. It will follow you forever, until it kills you, and then it will go after the last person you slept with. Sleep with someone else? It will follow them, kill them, and then continue to follow you. 

On paper I agree, it sounds fairly generic slasher/ghost movie gumpf. What makes 'It Follows' stand head and shoulders above the rest, is the way it executes such a simple idea. 

Relatively unknown director David Robert Mitchell is evidently a fan of the genre. Everything you could possibly hope for is in there. A street that is almost a carbon copy of Carpenter's Haddonfield in 1978's 'Halloween', an almost Manfredinian score, and at it's core, a big salute to the slasher movie's of the 80's where ultimately, having sex meant instant death. I could spend all day listing the various cap off references this film has, but this isn't an exercise in A level film studies. 

Above everything else, this does what horror films are supposed to do, and that is scare. As a hardnened horror fan, it's been a long time since I sat through something that I could honestly say put me in a state of agitation. It's not a 'make you jump' movie, it's not gory, nobody gets tortured, and there are no zombies or masked serial killers running round chopping people up with chainsaws. It isn't, and doesn't need to do any of those, because on an artistic level, it is the perfect example of what a horror film should be. 

If I could award this six stars, I would. A full five star horror. Go see it, just don't expect to sleep on the night you get home