It Follows (2014) Maika Monroe, Lili Sepe, Keir Gilchrist, Debbie Williams Movie Review

It Follows (2014)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Maika Monroe in It Follows (2014)

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Life was going well for 19 year old Jay (Maika Monroe) until one night when she is getting it on with her boyfriend in the car. Next thing she knows she is coming to tied to a chair and her boyfriend talking threateningly about some sort of curse he is going to pass on to her, something which will be there that you can't escape from. After the of horror of that and going to the police to discover her boyfriend was using a fake name things get very strange for Jay as she suffers strange visions and becomes convinced she is being followed. Permanently on edge Jay and her friends must discover a way of ridding Jay of this curse.

Do you care about the characters? I am sure once upon a time that writing characters who make the audience care about what happens to them was an important part of movie making. But it seems with each year that passes connecting and liking a character becomes less and less important to film makers which in turn has led me to find many a modern movie less than engaging. In fact in the horror genre this lack of character depth is a big problem and often you will find a movie maker ignoring character depth in favour of focusing on the shock elements. This is the case when it comes to "It Follows", a supernatural horror movie which suffers because it doesn't build the characters in such a way that we care what happens to them.

Keir Gilchrist in It Follows (2014)

And do you know what? The fact "It Follows" doesn't deliver engaging characters really spoils what could have been a decent movie with this interesting idea of a curse you pass on to someone through sex, yes that does sound like a High School STD joke. But that idea combined with some nice ideas when it comes to, in this case Jay suffering various visions, gives the movie an element of mystery especially when it comes to Jay and her friends fighting back whilst this curse gets smart when it comes to who these visions are.

Yet whilst there is a certain level of intelligence when it comes to "It Follows" there is also a sense of desperation when it comes to the use of nudity and sexual content. Now don't get me wrong as I have no objection to nudity but it needs to have a purpose and unfortunately there are times when in this it feels like the nudity has been thrown in to pander to a teenage audience. In fairness the nudity doesn't spoil the movie but it does add to the feel that it was added to try and distract you from a lack of character depth.

What this all boils down to is that "It Follows" is a movie with some good ideas but also a movie which really messes up the basics which stops it ever really engaging with the audience.


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