Mitchell’s technical mastery and insistence on metaphysical horror has triumphed

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto

Rating: 15

Running Time: 100mins

Release Date: 27th February 2015

Underpinning David Robert Mitchell’s IT FOLLOWS – also present in his debut, THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER – is the pervasive restlessness of teen’s living in outer Detroit’s sprawl of suburban white flight. In one scene, Jay (Maika Monroe) and Hugh (Jake Weary) play a guessing game in a cinema queue. Hugh admits that he wishes to be the child at the water fountain because his whole life is ahead of him. In Mitchell’s world, teenagehood is nothing more than a terse, dimly lit bridge to adult life.

Whereas THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER treats the present as overrated and the future deeply concerning, IT FOLLOWS raises the stakes. An allegorical monster acts as the principle symbol of uncertainty enveloping adolescence. Awareness of the inexorable momentum of time – and all it entails – is triggered by the final hurdle of youth, sexual relations. Sex acts as the film’s central ‘rule’: consummation diverts the curse of the monster to the next unwitting soul. This plot device forces a series of contrasting perspectives on what was to the youngsters, an inchoate awareness of mortality. Hugh passes it as soon as he can, Jay delays her passing due to moral dilemmas, Greg (Daniel Zovatto) is disbelieving and calm when he’s ‘it’.

There is nothing anachronistic about sex being the aperture to death’s proximity. The metaphysician of evil, philosopher George Bataille linked the sex act with death, both being part of the cycle of existence. Sexual bodies are unindividuated during the dynamism of exertion. The climax is what the French call the ‘little death’, an audition for the final act, and the disseminator of our genes. Unlike the ‘rules’ Wes Craven sent up in his SCREAM franchise – where sexual activity is beaten by a conservative baton – IT FOLLOWS treats sex as a wellspring of dread-inducing knowledge. Sex renders the fuzzy comforts of teen comradery and freedom asunder. Nothing will be the same again: the biological imperative subconsciously reminds Hugh, Jay, and Greg, that time will win in the end.

In a Q and A at the Curzon in Soho, Mitchell dismissed a questioner regarding the importance of boredom in his fledgling body of work. Yet Mitchell’s films bear striking similarities with the vacuous middle-class dioramas of Brett Easton Ellis’ work. Passive boredom and tranquillity delays and blurs the youth’s sense of direction and inevitable path to becoming-adult. When the teens venture beyond their homes, to the rundown parts of Detroit, no political points are scored by Mitchell. There is no insidious ‘other’ in the apocalyptic ruins beyond the good side of the tracks. For Mitchell, horror’s face is our own; perspectival, and always encroaching.

The film’s spiritual antecedent is A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Like Freddy Krueger, IT FOLLOW’s monster changes role depending on the person encountering it. Similarly, lines are blurred between dream and reality as early as the opening shots – all that’s missing is Craven’s yellow school bus. Even the affable rogue, Greg, appears to be modelled on Johnny Depp’s Glen. Additionally, parents are either absent, broken figures or possessed by the monster. Without the authority of parents, both film worlds depict a vulnerable neighbourhood open to a contagion of fear and death. IT FOLLOWS avoids Craven’s meta-rules of the 90s, something films like CABIN IN THE WOODS failed to resist.

In a world where the old guard of Craven, Carpenter, and Cronenberg have moved on, semi-retired, or looked to other genres, IT FOLLOWS breathes fresh air into a stale genre. It’s certainly not derivative because it builds on the allegorical potential of Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street films. The film perfectly balances its contemporary setting with the 80s, lo-fi atmosphere of horror’s heyday. Monotonous ‘torture-porn’ peaking in the 90s; independent, low budget shock fests; and mainstream horror’s preoccupation with generic supernatural stories, has led to a comatose genre. A film like Mitchell’s, however, acts as a beacon of hope, proving horror films can be intelligent affairs. IT FOLLOWS is both suspenseful and atmospheric, Mitchell’s technical mastery and insistence on metaphysical horror has triumphed.

Verdict

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