It Follows is a new indie horror flick (out at the theaters) with a theme you’ve heard before: have sex, get stalked and killed by something that.. well.. follows…

Basically, if a person is being followed, he or she can sleep with someone else and pass the curse. That person can have sex and pass the curse as well… but if the thing that follows kills the last person in the chain, the curse reverts to the previous person. Which is interesting since you can pass the curse but it’s in your best interest to warn the person (after the fact). Kind of Ring-like in a way… with Ring-like questions (what about three-ways… or full on orgies? Will the thing that follows lose track? Can gay sex pass the curse? The world will never know).

So it’s a kind of horror stalker movie that punishes teenagers for having sex but the only solution is to have more sex. So that’s a nice twist on the old formula.

This movie is a slow burn… sometimes a very slow burn… it follows. Very slowly. The movie wants to create an eerie sense of foreboding and it kind of does but it overdoes the throw-back synth music to the point of distraction. This movie seems to want to be a John Carpenter movie really bad, from that synth music that made me wonder if this WAS a Carpenter film (it isn’t), to the very Halloween-like neighborhood, to the camera work and editing.

Basically, this movie wants to be an indie and art-house slasher film. It trades in the cliches of slasher flicks (the thing that follows always walks, it never runs, and it never gives up) while not feeling like a typical low-brow, no budget, we’re-barely-even-trying horror flick we usually get. I wanted to like this movie more because, as a fan of horror, you can wade through so many bad movies to just get to the good ones.

The movie could have taken place in the 80s except one character has a clamshell compact ebook reader but nobody seems to have a cell phone. So that’s an interesting take that I think was meant to alleviate the “why don’t you just call someone on your cell?” by making it feel like it’s taking place in the past but also modern enough that it doesn’t seem dated (that ebook reader seems like something slightly futuristic, actually).

Also, hey, the movie takes place in suburban Detroit (around 12 mile). It doesn’t celebrate this fact until near the ending where they have a random conversation about 8 mile being the edge of the city and how weird learning that fact when you grow up north of the city line. I’m not sure why they brought this up since the movie could be taking place anywhere.

Anyhow, this is an interesting movie but goes on much too long. It could pretty much end at any point and ultimately does with a very Carpenter-style ending. The almost desperate attempts to generate a mood of uneasiness will ultimately be what sells or loses you. I was kind of lost since the score seemed SO desperate to be spooky and unsettling. But, hey, it’s still a good try.

Score: 78