By Melissa Antoinette Garza
When I first saw the theatrical ad for It Follows, I was excited because the other new horror release Unfriended (2015) looks awful and the new Poltergeist (2015) regardless if it’s good will get the “remake” backlash. The trailer for It Follows looked promising and though little was revealed, it felt like an old-school horror movie where the tension and fear would be heightened with every scene. I was really expecting this to be an 8.
My best friend and I were excited to see this which is a rarity. We typically go into a movie expecting something awful and then make fun of it. Here, we were too disappointed to make fun (as much).Unfortunately, that’s not what we got. First, the film feels like a slut-shaming movie. Jay (Maika Monroe), a woman in her late teens or early twenties begins dating a guy named Hugh (Jack Weary). After a few dates she sleeps with him, only to be chloroformed after the fact, tied to a wheelchair and put in the middle of an isolated parking garage.Hugh begins to apologize but says the only way to pass this “thing” to someone else and save themselves is to do so sexually. Now, that he’s given it to her, IT is attracted to her and once she’s dead it will go to the next person on the list. Think, Final Destination (2000) meets Stephen King’s IT (1990), but bad.Hugh ties her up so that she believes him and that she will do her best to stay alive so that IT leaves him alone. This curse/entity can take any form but usually takes the form of a really tall guy, one of their friends, or a naked person who is supposed to be disturbing due to makeup to make them hideous.
These entities just follow and attempt to kill the person.The acting was fine and the casting was on the mark, but the
writing, and attempt at an odd atmosphere just confused the entire film. The lack of any answers was so frustrating. This would be a mediocre episode of Tales from the Crypt, but as a film it was so much worse. They had time to explain the mindset of the characters when they come up with an idea. In one scene, they decide to trap IT in a swimming pool. They bring a bunch of electronic devices that are just odd and old rather than clever which was most certainly the attempt. They used a bug lamp, an old fashioned electric typewriter, a hair dryer, an old transistor radio, etc. They also brought a gun. The teens plugged everything in and then pushed them nearby the pool. One teen, Paul who has unrequited love for Jay also brings a gun.Now, this could be a cool scene, but a few key points are missing. The rationale as to why these teenagers think this will work is never explained. Even when the IT is shot and blood fills the swimming area, the film doesn’t explain why the supernatural being is able to be stopped by a bullet. Also, as the entity uses the electronics to try and electrocute Jay who is in the pool, it doesn’t take the time to let us know what their real plan was. Had they watched Bud the Chud (1989) and thought we would just know they were going to electrocute this thing?
The overall movie pays more focus on attempting to be artistic and a faux-Stanley Kubrick than make any sense. It attempts to make connections by reusing certain things like water. The first girl dies at the ocean, the first time we see Jay she’s swimming alone in a pool, they all go to the beach where IT attacks, and of course the near conclusion at the swimming pool. What does any of this mean? Was it an attempt at foreshadowing the eventual showdown? From beginning to end, there is no explanation as to where IT came from, what IT is, why it’s upset, or even what decade the majority of the movie takes place in. The usual “what, when, why, where and how” that are general questions the writers answer or at least provide multiple answers for are never delved into at all.As for as the “when” goes, this is odd as I know that the intention was to be clever but it came out just unrealistic and strange. No one but the girl in the very beginning that isn’t related to the rest of the movie has a cell phone. No one has a computer or the internet. All of the cars and televisions are from the 80s or before. On the TV, old Godzilla movies and black and white productions are shown. The clothing style is also from the 80s or before. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem except one of main characters has a device that to my knowledge hasn’t even been made yet. It’s the shape of a shell but it opens and inside there’s basically a Kindle where books are downloaded. Now, there are movies that have done this previously.
Napoleon Dynamite comes to mind. In the film, the characters wear clothing and act in a manner where each one could be from a different decade. Though, I’m not a huge fan of the movie, it made sense there. The movie was a strange little comedy with quirky characters and the odd atmosphere fit.Here it didn’t. Without defining the decade and especially showing a girl with the little shell, one has to wonder why they didn’t look online to see if there was any folklore. If computers, in this world, don’t exist then they could go to a library.At one point, the group tracks down Hugh who had changed his name and lied about where he lived to infect Jay and get away with it. He apologizes and then tells her the same thing he told her in the beginning. No new information is provided there or in any other scene.
I honestly haven’t a clue why there is so much talk about this movie. It isn’t tense, frightening or disturbing. It attempts to disturb with this thing appearing as her naked father, or another person’s naked mother who becomes a sexual attacker of her dead son, but that’s just disturbing in the cheap way where no effort is put into it. It doesn’t sit with the viewer once it’s over and while it’s one, I was just thinking, “what the hell am I watching?”It has a few jump scares but they’re all cheap as well. The ending is tame and leaves the viewers in the odd predicament of having less insight into the film after watching the movie than when seeing the trailer. It just wasn’t good.There are horror movies that can successfully leave the audience with questions. The original Black Christmas (1974) is a perfect example. (spoiler) The killer is never revealed, but at the end the tension that was built throughout makes it a non-point. It doesn’t matter who the murderer was as long as the movie just ends!
Tourist Trap (1979) is another. Outside of magic no explanation as to why the mannequins came alive was ever given.
Still, it’s creepy enough and interesting enough that magic is an acceptable answer.The difference with IT Follows, is that there isn’t any explanation. It could have been a strange STD that was created by the government as a method of population control, it could have been something conjured by the highest members of the church to detour premarital sex. It could have been made by the weapons department to create the perfect soldier where our military could literally sleep with the enemy to give them this killer which is invisible to everyone else (to a point). This is another strange rule. Even though no one else can see this thing, they do see its outline when they throw a blanket on it and they see its actions like when it pulls hair. Hell, at this point, I’d accept the “aliens” copout. Sure, it’s a shapeshifting alien who comes to earth and latches on to a person to destroy the planet and determines its kills by sex.
If they didn’t do the stupid outline of the ghost that could be seen by everyone, they could have made it an illusion that took real form because the people believed in it too much.Despite it all, this movie pissed me off. I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it. Though, it’s watchable once, in the end it just becomes irritating because the answers you’re waiting for never come. It takes the same easy way out that a lot of “found footage” films do. Since it’s found footage, they have a reason for not having all the answers. It isn’t there fault. That’s all the footage there was. That in itself is lazy and bullshit, but this is a whole other level. Here, they don’t go the found-footage method but they still refuse to explain any important detail within the movieIn the end, wait for Redbox or better yet free streaming on Amazon.
Scared Stiff Rating: 4.5/10 More like ‘IT SUCKS’…. BURN!
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