David@FrankHarvey said:
I wasn't sure about it on first viewing, but watched it many times now and love it.
Nice to see a film that is trying to do something different, and as absurd as the idea behind it may seem, pulling it off. The setting of the film seems very "Halloween", and there's a great sequence of slow panning shots which are showing various places (one being a garden) to some music, which looks and sounds like it's straight out of a John Carpenter film. Next time I watch it I'll have to find the timing so you know what I mean (might be obvious anyway).
It's an interesting film to pick apart.
Halloween comparisons abound and are in many ways valid, but It Follows differs stylistically in one important way, namely the absence of POV. The camera never tracks "it's" perspective, meaning the threat is always potentially in frame. Carpenter pulled this off expertly, too (we're constantly scanning the frame for "the shape"), but in It Follows the threat can be anybody, however familiar or otherwise, or seemingly innocuous or monstrous.
These cinematic and narrative devices combine to unnerving effect and are carefully exploited by frequent slow pans. If anyone in the frame (at any given moment) might constitute a threat, we can never relax. In terms of creating and maintaining suspense, these stylistic and narrative choices are both smart and at least somewhat innovative.
I say this because the film has been criticised as a Carpenter rip off, which I think is unfair. There's more going on here than imitation (I know you're not saying as much).
David@FrankHarvey said:
There's quite a mix of eras thought the film, so it's hard to pinpoint if the film is supposed to be modern or old fashioned - there's the old theatre where they go see a film, and her underwear looks very old fashioned, making it seem like the 50s, and yet one girl is using a very up to date 'clam shell' style e-reader and there's modern cars in it, making it seem modern day, but the Halloween feel makes it seem like late 70s/early 80s.
The filmmakers deliberately mash up the iconography of different eras, with a view to mythmaking. It Follows therefore has a somewhat timeless, universal and indeed dreamlike quality.
If you own the UK BD the commentary (by Danny Leigh and Mark Jancovich, one of the UK's leading scholars of cult and exploitation cinema) is worth a listen. In their view, "it" represents our knowledge of mortality; hence characters' longing for childhood and the frequent use of childhood iconography (playgrounds and bikes).
In other words, seeking to regress to childhood is really a desire to forestall death, to turn the clock back rather than moving ever closer to demise.
The coming of age narrative and horror trope (sex equals death) fits such a reading well. Jancovich points out that the protagonists exist in a liminal space (trapped between childhood and adulthood) and that stepping consciously into the adult world marks a significant point on their journey toward death. I think he overcomplicates things a little thereafter.
According to Jancovich, water represents both ends of the life cycle (birth and death), but I think there's a cleaner reading that better fits his overall interpretation. I'd argue that water is more clearly associated with sex (which is at the heart of the film's narrative, mythmaking and character journeys). Beaches therefore become sites of trauma for one simple reason: they're thresholds between two states; land and water, or in terms of cinematic grammar, childhood and the adult world.
The first scene culminates with a death on the beach. Jay is attacked on the beach and surrenders herself sexually to a group of men on a boat (we don't see how this encounter plays out, but there's little doubt that it was a damaging experience). The film closes following a battle in a swimming pool, again a site of transition (or liminal space). And in the end, "it" cannot be destroyed. It'll always follow them and will inevitably catch up. There's no escape, or coming to terms with this. Their time is finite. Only procreation offers some sense of victory in a race they can't win.
I'm not sure if any of the above explains why BBB finds the film unnerving, but it's fun to unpack and there's definitely replay value.
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