Having caused quite a stir on the festival circuit, indie horror It Follows arrives on UK shores carrying with it strong word-of-mouth backing, and an unusual amount of acclaim for a genre that doesn’t normally enjoy critical support. But while It Follows has a strong idea at its core, it ultimately promises more than it can deliver.
As It Follows begins, Jay (Maika Monroe) is a high-school student newly dating the handsome Hugh (Jake Weary), who finally convinces her to sleep with him. As soon as she does so however, he flees the scene, pausing only long enough to warn her that she is now cursed to be hunted eternally, at walking pace, by a murderous shape-shifting demon – and the only way to rid herself of her pursuer is to sleep with someone else. 
It’s an intriguing set-up, one which director David Robert Mitchell is clever enough to never fully explain, and brave enough to play straight. And, initially at least, the relentless demon offers some scares, playing on that fear we have all had at one stage or another of being followed. Mitchell is happy to let tension build slowly rather than relying on jump scares, and he’s a master of the wide shot: our eyes search the corner of every frame for a distant shambling figure. In one particularly bravura scene, the camera slowly and repeatedly spins 360 degrees, spinning between the oblivious heroes and the the ever-closer demon. He also makes the most of the Detroit setting, the crumbling townhouses of the failing city creating an aura of persistent wrongness and unease.
The problem is that as time goes on the core concept proves to be one that works better on paper than it does in practice. The demon takes many forms, often with a twisted sexual edge (an apparent rape victim, or a naked parent) but some of these are considerably less terrifying than others – an elderly granny creeping down a high school hallway is not the terrifying sight the filmmakers seem to think it is. It’s ultra-slow movement also becomes vaguely comical after a while, reminding me rather unfortunately of this video from a while back, and too often the filmmakers fall back on characters making stupid decisions (‘I know! Let’s hide in this small room with only one way in or out!’) to create tension. 
As with many horror films, It Follows also becomes considerably less interesting in its final act. While the shape-shifting entity at least alleviates the usual problem of the monster being rendered far less scary after its big reveal, having set the story running Mitchell doesn’t really seem to know how to bring it to a close. It Follows doesn’t end so much as slowly peter out.
What It Follows does have going for it is its two central characters. As Jay, Monroe is not just attractive (the usual sole requirement for a female lead in a horror film) but also likeable and believable. Credit too must go to Keir Gilchrist as Paul, a childhood friend of Jay who is absolutely besotted with her. If he sounds like a teen movie archetype, their relationship is more complex than such films usually allow for. It’s a shame the other characters don’t get the same development – one in particular is such a douchebag that he might as well be carrying around a neon sign that says ‘I’m going to die horribly’.
It might be damning It Follows with faint praise to say that it tries hard, but it does. With its killer high concept, it offers a subversive twist on the usual conservative tropes of teen horror – sex is no longer merely a sin punishable with death, but a means of survival. It also doesn’t seem to hate its main characters (a depressingly unusual state of affairs for the genre), taking the time to flesh them out rather than rushing to kill them in the goriest fashion possible. But if its classic B-movie title and retro keyboard-heavy Carpenter-esque score promise old-fashioned scares, Mitchell’s film ultimately can’t deliver. It’s one good idea stretched further than it can really go. It Follows is an admirable failure. But it is a failure.
4/10
The Mongoose 