It Follows by David Robert Mitchell has just celebrated its eighth birthday this year, and still remains one of the most anxiety-inducing modern horror classic from the 2010s. Its influence on the modern stalker trope is what makes it still stand out years later.
Following (get it?) a successful release back in February 2015, the movie stole the number eight spot of the most popular film in UK cinemas during its opening week. However, in recent years, the movie has failed to make its way into conversations among avid horror movie fans.
Image credit: Baltimore Magazine
Synopsis
It Follows, finds Jay, our heroine of the movie, as she is unwillingly subjected to a sexually transmitted curse wherein she is stalked by a non-verbal, zombie-like monster. It takes the form of those she loves most, but only her and previous victims can see them, until the moment they fulfil the curse by killing her or until Jay passes the curse unto someone else. Through her often cautious friends, Jay must fight to survive this psychological horror.
Although it may sound like a generic stalker-killer movie, Robert Mitchel’s modern masterpiece is much more than that. It is elevated horror at its finest, redesigning the new scopes which movies after its release would try to build on, for instance, Us by Jordan Peele released four years later.
It Follows builds on the foundations of horror through gruesome but amazing panning shots of victims who have succumbed to the curse, and perfectly timed anxiety-inducing scores by Disasterpeace, AKA Rich Vreeland. The movie meditates on the inevitability of adulthood, and how running away never seems to solve the curse of growing old.
As an avid horror movie fan myself, I urge those who want an underrated modern-day horror movie masterpiece, to give It Follows a watch, at their own discretion.
The movie has you questioning whether or not the people you see in the street are actually cold-blooded killers with an ulterior motive to murder you.
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