It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2015)

[domino harvey]

Seeing lots of good reviews for David Robert Mitchell's followup to the wonderful the Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows (the only US film in the Critic's Circle at Cannes). Here's a five-star review from Telegraph

[mfunk9786]

It Follows, the second feature from David Robert Mitchell, unfortunately proved to be a rather empty experience for me. Starting with the good - Mitchell is a heck of a visual stylist, never hesitating to move the camera (sometimes in 360 degree pans) to establish a sense of what's going on, where danger is coming from - think of it, coupled with the music, as a heightened take on John Carpenter's style circa Halloween. The actors are serviceable in their roles, feeling like real kids (if not, in the case of Maika Monroe for example, obviously adults - she plays it well though) in a real town and... well, that's ultimately where my problems begin here. Mitchell writes the film like a collection of the best and worst of R.L. Stine. Lines like "Your sister is so pretty, it's annoying." and a cavalcade of other declarative sentences make me relieved we don't have a narrator to tell us they're 13 years old, just moved to Shady Hollows with their parents, and are sort of getting into the Beatles. Add the fetishization of youth nostalgia that unsurprisingly comes along with that sort of writing (if I had to see one more shot of a sandwich on white bread with a careful handful of Doritos on a plate or someone drinking from a juicebox...) and a story that amounts to an insanely weak metaphor about virginity, developing sexuality, and possibly (I hope not, as it makes the moral structure on which the film is built shaky at best) sexually transmitted diseases, and there's just not much here beyond solid horror direction. Perhaps if Mitchell didn't seem so darn pleased with himself: He plays with, as I mentioned, some of the same visual "hey look, middle class kids" cues over and over; there are gags (like one character's makeup case-modeled e-reader) that are shoehorned in as often as possible in case we missed them; some of those virtuoso 360 degree shots seem wholly unnecessary aside from keeping tension ratcheted up when characters aren't doing much outside of, say, looking in a yearbook for someone's name. I realize that this film is ultimately attempting to find the terrifying in the mundane rites of passage that everyone goes through when growing up in one way or another, but by the time It Follows stalls through the finish line, it just doesn't succeed in having anything new to say about them.

[lacritfan]

Horror film It Follows from David Robert Mitchell (The Myth of the American Sleepover).

[Professor Wagstaff]

The Weinstein Company is delaying the VOD release to open It Follows on 1000+ screens next week

Now I'm debating if I want to see this at an out-of-the-way art house theatre this weekend or at a multiplex next weekend which would make for a more convenient option, but perhaps a rowdier audience.

[warren oates]

I think you should see it in theaters with an audience, but it's not the sort of the thing that would necessarily play better in an art house.

I'm mixed on this film too, but compared to mfunk I quite liked it. And many of the things he finds problematic I think were fine or even virtues. David Robert Mitchell clearly has strong feelings both for and about his own youth, as well as a subtle grasp of the nuances of the relationships of his teenage characters. I thought this was even better employed beneath the surface of this compelling genre narrative than in his earlier film, where that was kind of all there was. In that respect -- as a filmmaker revisiting his youth while refashioning genre films he remembers from it -- this is almost like a better version of Super 8, and a bit more imaginative and classier because it's not so slavishly tied to one specific period when the filmmaker himself was a teen, but set instead in a kind of ambiguosly retro present, where some people have smartphones and small portable e-readers and others watch old cabinet CRT televisions. The director's clearly a very talented filmmaker, who's able to create and sustain the sort of dread a film like this demands. Almost everything about the technical side of the production is assured and impressive. I especially liked some of the eerie 360 moves that mfunk mentions. As a low-budget 80s/90s-ish pastiche I think it far surpasses something like Ti West's House of the Devil. As an entry into the recent American Indie horror renaissance it's near the top.

The film's imagery, themes and set pieces borrow from movies like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Ring without feeling too reminiscent of any of them. The monster in the film is a mash-up of

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a slow-zombie (it always only moves at the pace of a walk), a ghost (only the cursed can see it), a figment (it's forever shape-shifting phantasmagorically).

The problems I have with it are more to do with how the film tells you the rules of its world and then does or does not seem to stick to them. I found a review at Indie Wire that said it all better than I could:

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The “rules” of the phantasm’s limitations, (and therefore the way that they work out how to defeat it) are a little diffuse — how does it catch up to the kids at the lake? Why do they wait within walking distance? Where does it go after being temporarily defeated? Similarly, the fact that despite being invisible it has form that can be hit or felt or outlined by having a sheet thrown over it is kind of awkward too — where does the blood come from when it’s shot? Shouldn’t the whole point of setting the climax at a swimming pool be so that in water you’d be able to tell where it is?

[domino harvey]

While as ever I'm somewhat baffled by WO's narrative nitpicks, I'm glad to see we have far more in common when it comes to our positive reaction to It Follows, though I like it far more than those who've weighed in so far. Now, I went in far from impartial, since I think Mitchell's the Myth of the American Sleepover is one of the best films of recent memory, and it does me good to see his followup receiving such effusive critical and now popular success. Like his debut, It Follows is observant without being too clever-- this is a smart film, but not one with any claims of wit (this isn't an insult or a criticism, merely an observation, and it serves the film well), with its perfunctory characters and dialogue something of a blank slate to bounce our own recognition signifiers against. I don't see anything wrong with this film, which is structured openly enough to lend itself to a myriad of readings, being overly nostalgic or even cute in its question-mark period trappings (though as in Mitchell's first film, it all seems squarely aimed at, uh, me), so long as it means something. I think it does, so it all works. If you were left cold, you're going to find a lot to pick apart in a film as earnest as this. This is a beautiful-looking, memorably-scored, just plain great film, and its success no doubt will ensure that Mitchell can get a followup financed. And that's a good thing, because Mitchell is cementing himself as one of the most exciting new voices in film.

[warren oates]

You don't happen to know if there were any problems with the ending or reshoots during post or anything like that, do you? I'm especially thinking of the way in which that climactic set piece

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just kind of peters out, not seeming to take full advantage of the location or the kids' plan, certainly not the way in which somebody we were agreeing on earlier today like Hitchcock would have used that place.

[mfunk9786]

Finding out that Domino loved this film is the most expected, least surprising, most pleasant thing to happen to me today. Seems like it was made for you, Bloggy B.

Warren - the film's making up of its own rules as it goes along to serve a metaphor that never quite comes out of the oven as something that's fully baked is definitely what soured me as my viewing went along. I've yet to read a breakdown that really makes sense of what Mitchell is going for here beyond "it's about sex, man." It's also, as someone on Twitter who was equally 'meh' on this pointed out, not scary in the slightest. Something like The Conjuring has a much more lasting impact on me because I still remember digging my fingernails into the armrests, but I feel like there are critics who've confused how enamored they are with this (admittedly well crafted, well-intentioned) film with how frightening it actually winds up being.

[domino harvey]

Re: warren oates' questions regarding the ending

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To me that finale's locale seemed more important symbolically due to it being the locale where our two protagonists shared their first kiss. So, in recognizing the need to procure some form of symbolic gesture (innate in the characters, whether conscious or not), the swimming pool (with water and swimming being recurrent motifs) becomes a clear marker for a showdown. I don't think it's underutilized, and indeed one of my favorite parts of the film is how a lot of the "rules" and solutions are mostly guesswork and second-hand info (shades of sexual education among teens not derived from wholly trustworthy sources) and so a lot of the planning peters out or is contradicted by the action. The plan as it is is pretty dumb (as far as I can gather, they thought electric currents would travel through the entire pool), but I'll take our characters trying and failing and then leaping into action to see what works next over something like the American version of the Ring, where characters suddenly divine accurate rules as dogma with the scantest of evidence or motivation. And I thought the kicker, pun definitely intended, of all the electric devices quickly being thrown and tossed at Jay while she's in the middle of the pool trying to escape visually interesting. And the blood you mention is only seen by Jay, which again makes sense, she could see the wound on the following-version of her friend at the beachhouse when one of her friends shot it in the neck, so I don't see why that's a deal-breaker, especially since there's plenty of narrative evidence to suggest from the actions of our protagonists that they only slowed it down before giving up and doing the "wrong" thing by passing it along to (hopefully) (probably not) clear themselves.

[warren oates]

I do appreciate domino's incisive take on the layers of meaning in that pool scene. And, yeah, I don't even want to watch the dumbest action movie where everything goes according to the neatly laid out plan. But, their plan B is to literally

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shoot a ghost. Something that we're meant to understand from prior scenes just isn't possible within the world of this film.

To mfunk's suggestion that the film isn't objectively scary enough: I don't know, I maybe reacted more viscerally to more specific moments during the runtime of The Conjuring, a film I think I liked about as much as you, but It Follows, for me, has a subtler dread that's stayed with me, in spite of my agreement with you about the many ways the film ultimately loses its way.

[domino harvey]

Limited Edition official poster

[Drucker]

Does anybody read anything into this with the final scene:

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What about the fact that after the pool experience, they are both dressed in white? This was an ongoing thing in the film. The big man who appeared a few times was just wearing a white undershirt and briefs. The kid with the scary face, the same thing. I am pretty sure many of the other, if not all of the monster's iterations were wearing pure white. In the final scene, our two protagonists are wearing white, holding hands, and followed by some random guy in the background in all white.

I know that the film wasn't exactly consistent, but surely this was intentional and meant to mean something?

Overall I liked it a lot and thought it was a fun movie. I try not to get too caught-up in internal consistency with films like this, but I really liked the vibe and look of the film, it's eschewing of technology, and nostalgic feel.

[domino harvey]

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Well, we know the woman seen in the movie theatre by the guy that passed it to Jay was wearing a yellow dress and it seemed like the following version of the neighbor was wearing khaki longjohns, but it is wearing white when it takes the form of Jay's e-reader pal, so it's not consistent

[YnEoS]

A friend strongly recommended this one to me, so I walked in completely blind. It's been quite a while since I've had such a good experience seeing a modern horror film in the theater. I loved the way the framing constantly gave you a glimpse at the surroundings, while never being quite enough to feel comfortable/safe, and also avoided obvious jump scare timing. The mood/interactions of the teenagers was also great, and it had me constantly scanning the background for signs of danger.

[YnEoS]

Been thinking about the film more, and I wanted to expand a bit on the vague impressions I posted earlier.

What I really like about the film is how the conflict is based around the horror element that is chasing these characters and virtually every scene is about planning how to overcome this threat. But the threat also brings together characters who have slowly grown apart with time and allows them to re-visit their childhood experiences. The nostalgia of the characters to the simpler times growing up, most explicitly stated by Hugh on the movie date when he says he would trade places with the kid, mirrors the movie's own nostalgia for old horror genres. Its interesting in that while the pacing of the film never lets us forget about the threat, we also slowly learn about the relationships between all these people growing up, and also all the hopes and regrets that had long been buried as they grew up and grew apart.

[D50]

As far as shooting the ghosts, they could have just watched Shaun of the Dead, which would explain the head shots.

[JamesF]

Trivia for horror fans: the cinema where Jay and Hugh have their date at the start of the film is the Redford Theater just outside Detroit, which is where The Evil Dead had its world premiere (under its original title Book Of The Dead) in 1981.

[DarkImbecile]

I'm more on the positive side of the fence on this one, both regarding the "flawed" rules - I have no problem with minor inconsistencies in supernatural forces when those inconsistencies are easily explained away by remembering that It is a grotesque and unstoppable malevolent force that no one really understands - and the overall value of the film.

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While sex is obviously a major preoccupation throughout, I felt that the significance of It and how It is transmitted had less to do with an STD metaphor and more to do with the loss of innocence and the associated knowledge of impending death. As noted earlier, Mitchell repeatedly returns to the idea of childhood innocence and its palpable absence in the lives of even characters as young as the protagonists. The significance of both the means of contracting It and the larger "rules" around surviving seems to be that once you've been entered into the chain of victims and made aware of your new reality, you can never be truly safe/innocent again. The ever-present possibility of death is something that is dealt with differently by several characters throughout: the girl in the opening sequence gives up and resigns herself to it, Greg's denial of death gets him killed, and Jay and Paul cope by pairing up to face It together (while also pragmatically and/or selfishly protecting each other even at the expense of others). The multiple readings from Dostoevsky specifically underlining this idea about the way we approach the knowledge of our unavoidable death are a little on the nose, but not unwelcome (primarily because I like Dostoevsky).

In addition to the excellent music and dynamic camerawork others have noted, I especially liked Mitchell's willingness to use implication and ambiguity in ways that linger in the mind; in particular, the scene where Jay stumbles onto the guys on the boat out on the lake has stuck with me, primarily because it's never referenced again but has some very significant character implications depending on how one interprets it.

Very excited to see what Mitchell does moving forward, especially since, as Dom noted, the success of this film should provide greater opportunities.

[warren oates]

How does one interpret that boat scene and what are the significant implications?

[DarkImbecile]

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The clear implication is that she was swimming out to have sex with one or more of the men on the boat, and the cut is to her tear-streaked face as she drives the car back into town. Did she succeed? If so, did she do so just hoping to buy herself more time, even at the probable expense of these men's lives, or was she still naively thinking they had a better chance of survival than she did? If not, did she change her mind turn back, or get rejected (unlikely, I know...)?It's unclear how much time has passed by the next time we see It, as It's standing on the roof of her house while the group heads to the pool. Is It actively coming after her or are these just the sightings that Hugh/Jeff mentioned he was still seeing even when someone else was the current target?

For the plot, the details of what did or didn't happen on the lake don't seem to matter (which also ties into the theme of the inevitable nature of the threat of death I mentioned earlier); but as a character moment, it seems significant to understanding both how she processes her own situation and the grief over the death of her friend, and how we might sympathize with her. Like I said, I like the ambiguity, and pondering the implications of one outcome or another is part of the joy of the film (and this is only one of several scenes meeting that description, most notably the final shot).

[warren oates]

That's a nice way of putting it. Nothing that I don't think I picked up on per se. But it also just sort of makes me sad again about how all of the many things the film does pretty right that you and others above have described -- the feeling for the kids and their own loss of innocence, the abstract metaphorical power of the threat -- aren't quite matched by the film's overall lack of storytelling rigor.

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There isn't just the boat scene that's potentially an ambiguous moment of curse transmission, there's that little vignette at the end with Paul driving around the ghetto clearly looking for a prostitute to pass on his curse to. And even if he succeeds who's to say he went far enough away from his neighborhood or social circle to prevent it from eventually coming back to him? On that level, as a thematic idea, yeah, it's compelling. I'm fine with an ever-looming threat, but one that sometimes looms or doesn't or sometimes is okay with getting shot in the head with ordinary bullets and at other times just surrenders or lets the victim run away? Not so much.

When you compare it to the way things work in films like The Ring or even A Nightmare on Elm Street, well, you can't. Because as phantasmagoric as things get in some of the many horror films that this one is inspired by and draws on, you don't ever get the feeling -- that mfunk and I and some others I've spoken to offline all share -- that the film is sort of winging it, just kind of suddenly, on the fly, improvising changes to the way its world is supposed to work.

[DarkImbecile]

I guess I need more clarification on what you're referring to when you mention inconsistencies in the "rules"...

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This is an assumption on my part, but it seems like you and the IndieWire article you referenced earlier are primarily concerned with the confrontation at the pool, and whether the kids temporarily or otherwise "defeated" It. I didn't read shooting It in the head to be anything like defeating It, temporarily or otherwise, just slowing It down a bit. I thought the cloud of blood coming at Jay through the pool was an extreme illustration of Its relentlessness, and the fact that no one seemed to be operating under any illusions that they were safe immediately afterwards reinforces this. Correct me if I'm interpreting your point incorrectly, but the way the supernatural threat was explained and depicted here seemed much more logically consistent than Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street, which definitely seemed to be more willing to let happen whatever was convenient in the moment for the plot and the scares.

[PfR73]

Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse/Drafthouse Films CEO): IT FOLLOWS Is Not A Flop

[warren oates]

Thanks for posting that very interesting link. The key bit for me is below.

What I would love to see in the wake of It Follows' success is increased flexibility by all the major players involved: VOD platforms, cinemas and iTunes alike. Strong indie films with a chance of breaking out would begin with a 2-4 week theatrical window. If they do extremely well, the VOD and iTunes windows would be pushed back to allow the theatrical revenues to be maximized and for awareness of the film to build. At the same time, expansion market cinemas would be willing to pick up the film, provided it crossed certain revenue thresholds in its first two weeks of release. If the theatrical grosses aren't there, the film would stick to the compressed-window strategy or maybe play in those expansion markets with just a few showtimes.

[zedz]

Given what we know of the 'rules', it seemed to me that Jay could have staved off doom indefinitely by simply:

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commuting between her home and the lakehouse. If the thing is slowly but inexorably walking towards you, putting a hundred miles between you and it should buy you at least 24 hours. Of course, you'd have to wait until it caught up before driving off again, but it's better than a painful death. Put more distance between you, and you have more glide time. And there's no need to drive off at high speed (and crash the car) when you're being pursued by a foot-dragger. It's also a good way to turn the film into a comedy of exasperation, with the exhausted ghoul glumly turning around and trudging all the way back to town, perhaps shaking his fist at "those pesky kids". All is well until the ghoul learns how to use public transport.