Sex and horror movies long have gone together like fruit and a knife, but rarely is the relationship as explicit as it is in “It Follows,” which is sort of like a sexual chain letter of doom. Or a much different take on “Pay It Forward,” which is welcome, as that movie was terrible.
In “Follows,” it’s not long after Jay (Maika Monroe of “The Guest”) sleeps with a guy who turns out to have a fake name that he drugs her and ties her up. He soon explains that, thanks to their recent encounter, she now will see a slow-moving, possibly naked person who no one else can see but who will be real enough to try to kill her. This awful prize can be passed on to someone else through another pants-less rendezvous, but if the mysterious evil kills the Hypothetical Guy to Be Named Later, he’ll then come for Jay and follow it down the line. Needless to say, this is less pleasant for Jay than being told, say, “That was fun; I’ll call you and we’ll hang out again soon.”
Writer-director David Robert Mitchell made 2010’s “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” a little-seen but perceptive, worthwhile coming-of-age story that also brought patience and independent insight to well-worn territory. I don’t know that he refines or redefines any horror standards with the slow-building “It Follows” (Keir Gilchrist of “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” plays the nice guy who’d love for Jay to pass him anything), but he does conjure the sort of creeping suspense that, even if it doesn’t explode and terrify, lingers and sustains—unlike the noisy, violent glee brought to a progressive list of victims in the “Final Destination” series. Along with the score’s hard pounding and mild screeching, “It Follows” creates a quiet just waiting to be pierced, observing the experience of being young and finding normalcy punctured by something new and potentially scary.
There’s also a degree of subtle morality involved, giving teenagers an ability to think and reason that they don’t usually receive in the genre. (Though Jay does at one point run upstairs to evade her pursuer because, of course she does.) Monroe’s lead performance fits the movie’s restrained discomfort and dissonance between what everyone sees and what terror appears to be coming only for one unfortunate soul. What is youth if not uncertainty about what’s on the way, mixed with anxious sureness that it’s coming soon.
3 stars (out of four)
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