It Follows – The “Gotcha Last” STD

Before I jump into my critique, I have the following technical questions…

So the plot.

It wasn’t bad. Liked the monster. Liked how It was always there, but you could easily outpace it. Like that It is a shape shifter.

The beginning started out very cool, with Annie acting strange and eventually being mutilated, leaving us wondering “why” in that good way that leads to page turning.

My one criticism here is that it would have been cool if Annie was somehow connected to Hugh. A random comment she makes in regard to “that bastard that did this to me” or something. Then, when Hugh and Jay are at the movies, and Hugh suddenly sees the girl in the blue dress that isn’t there, he’s now got quite the choice to make.

Along those lines. I didn’t care for Hugh’s relationship with Jay. If he was there just to pass it onto her (renting the temporary shitty house), then he would have just tapped it and left, bidding her good luck.

If you tie him to Annie, the plot is stronger, in that Hugh is actually interested in Jay, but suddenly has to decide if he loves Jay enough to die for her.

That’s just my quick two cents though, and the main horror plot of the script was fine, it was just the other shit that bothered me.

Prepare to just watch people do stuff. At times it’s literally an adult version of Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Whether it’s driving to an out of the way diner and staring at people while you eat. (Which makes sense now, but was drawn out then.)

Watch the main character sit at campus and eat her lunch.

Have the two sisters characters walk home drinking slushees and smoke while having a drawn out discussion about who’s done what sexually.

Or watch a high school football game play out, randomly in the middle of summer by the way, while the characters occasionally ask about the identity of a girl who had It.

Solution

Why didn’t anyone just do what Paul does at the end? A prostitute seems like the logical choice. Pass It to her, and even if one of her clients die, she’ll still most likely pass It on to another “customer” before actually dying herself.

I mean, someone tells me I’ve got It, and now I’m Batman of the sex world, baby. I’m going to find me the classy, expensive ladies that the corrupt elite frequents, using It to my advantage and taking them out one by one.

John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Actually, there’s a bunch of scenes that just seem lifted right from the film. Which I don’t consider a bad thing exactly. The film is going for a type of atmosphere. A slow, cold, methodical atmosphere. And what better film to copy for that than Halloween!

So we start off with a young lady running out of her house wearing lingerie and red high heels. Um, okay… why is she wearing those? If this is what she sleeps in, I get the sexy underwear. But the shoes? They seem to only be there because in the next shot, we see her on the beach, her leg broken back, red high heel prominently featured. Cool imagery but still…

I also hope you enjoyed that off camera kill because that is pretty much it for the gore or the kills in this movie. This is not a slasher film, or a film for the gorehounds. Only two people ever get killed in this thing.

This feels like an early 80’s film. Down to the cars they drive, the TV’s they watch and the clothes they wear… Yet it is set in modern times because one of the girls reads a book throughout the film on a seashell shaped eReader. That is basically the only sign this wasn’t set in the fall of 1982 or something. Their homes even have landlines. You know how long it has been since I’ve seen a landline phone? Like 15 years at least.

So Jay, our heroine played by Maika Monroe (who also starred in the great sci-fi horror slasher 80’s style hybrid film The Guest last year) is going on a date with a new guy. Apparently she dates a lot. They make it known that she has had lots of boyfriends and this new guy is just another one to add to the list.

This new guy is Hugh.