David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows was released to very positive reviews earlier in 2015. It sounded like an update of a 1980s teen slasher flick with arty overtones. Neil’s not a fan of horror (cheap ass or art house) so I hoped it would still be on Movies On Demand for when my Mother visited. Fortunately, it was still available so we watched it on a drizzly afternoon.
 |
| Sex Is the Culprit |
If you have sex with someone, then someone you may or may not know, who’s generally only half-dressed, but is still showing too much skin, will follow and kill you unless you can pass this situation on to someone else by having sex. It’s a great set-up, but it took almost half an hour to get to that being explained. Instead, we dragged around with Jay, her sister, and her friends. After she was ‘infected,’ we dragged around some more with her just waiting with dreadful anticipation – the primary emotional response to a horror movie – for someone/something to get her.
 |
| Maika Monroe |
The acting was pretty good. Maika Monroe, who played Jay, looks and has a manner reminiscent of Chloë Sevigny, but without the sullenness. The details of the situation didn’t add up. Though only the infected person could see the force slowly pursuing her, it could still break windows and climb on things, but it couldn’t pass through doors without busting them down first.
The music was great at setting mood, but then the story didn’t really pay off. I liked the Detroit setting because we’d just visited there. Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography had a depth of color, especially in its emerald greens and blues, and clarity of line that was elegant. It reminded me a little of the color in Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1967); this felt a little like what a teen slasher flick would have been like if he’d directed one. And it would have had the same funereal pace.
No comments:
Post a Comment