It Follows (2014)

Directed by David Robert Mitchell

Unexpected! When I read the blurb just before watching this film, I thought that it would be a dark comedy filled with sarcasm through a horror lens. But! It was not.

I will start with doubtlessly my favourite part - visuals! I found them eye-catching and aesthetically pleasant. From the first scenes the movie is visibly indie, created by a smaller team and it’s part of the magic! In some scenes when the main character - when Jay panics, feels distress and extreme fear, the camera lens changes to a wider one. I found this little detail fascinating, it helped to escalate the emotions for us - viewers. I loved the dreamy scenes that looked like they were shot on film, they brought weird nostalgic feelings. Although I didn’t notice these thrilling details when watching, I later read it in other reviews. This film purposely abids what timeline or even season it is set. There’s many props from different decades or even some that don’t exist in our world. Main character is shown swimming in a pool in a few scenes but at the same time around the corner we are shown falling leaves and then people wearing boots and coats. I’m looking forward to rewatching this title to notice more details such as these.

Plot. I’m surprised how they took this quite silly sounding idea and created such a captivating film! Only at the beginning I had a bit of a laugh about context and some character action, but I appreciated its serious tone. Alternatively the scenes that did make me very uncomfortable were the sex scenes. They might not be categorised as SA, but sex there was unconsensual for sure. And even if we knew that characters agreed to these intercourses, they didn’t do it because of pleasure or attraction, nor want or need. It reminds of sex work or any other case, when people might consent to sex for other reasons. And even in sex work there’s pleasure, often one sided but pleasure. What really is consent and consensual? To move on, during viewing there were loads of short scenes that seemingly have no meaning and zero connection to other parts of the plot. It reminded me of reading poems, when sometimes just turning the page and seeing a new poem made me forget the previous one. And if the whole script is a poem, then Jay’s story is the one that stayed in our minds. The end was confusing as well but definitely matched the whole mood. What would happen next? Who knows and I don’t think we need to know.

Theories. The curse in the film felt like an allegory for something. But what was that something? Could it be a story about AIDS? Where unprotected sex with sometimes unfamiliar people lead to curse like deadly sickness? Because of the purposely confusing props and unclear timeline, this movie could be set in the 80s when getting HIV was the death sentence. Then and there most of the people found out that they had it only when it was too late. And even though this could be a valid theory, for me it felt too obvious and therefore bringing zero satisfaction. Some of the details in the movie didn’t really line up with that.

To sum up shortly, it was an interesting film with a weird script that totally worked. It is dreamy, unsettling and I would totally rewatch it again!