A fun, suspenseful throwback to the best horror films of the seventies and early eighties, IT FOLLOWS spares the gore but delivers the goods.
Maika Monroe stars as Jay, our teenage heroine who finds herself pursued by a supernatural entity after sleeping with a young man she has a crush on.
He explains to her that the entity can take on any human form, someone she knows or a complete stranger. It can never move faster than a walk, but 24/7 it will be walking directly toward her, wherever she goes.
The only way she can stop the supernatural force is to sleep with someone else, but if it catches and kills that person, it then comes directly back to her.
You could read many different metaphors into the film, from sexual guilt to social disease, but at it's heart IT FOLLOWS is a smart update of the classic horror films of our youth.
Writer/Director David Robert Mitchell weaves in the DNA of 'sexual activity equals death" that always haunted the "Friday the 13th" films with the relentless Michael Myers pursuit that drove the early "Halloween" films.
This film also is smart enough to incorporate a terrific electronic score by Rich Vreeland that breathes the same air as John Carpenter's scores for "The Fog" and "The Thing" and never lets you relax for long.
As Jay and her friends (all well played by a young cast) try to first accept what's happening and then live by its unbend-able rules, you will find yourself putting yourself in Jay's shoes and wondering what you would do.
Like the evil force in the film, IT FOLLOWS never stops moving and never loses focus, serving up one of the best horror films of recent memory and an enjoyable, suspenseful B.
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