It Follows Film Analysis

The movie that I reviewed was It Follows, a movie written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. The movie follows Jay Height: a teenager who is being pursued by a strange entity that is trying to kill her. This entity can take the shape of any person, stranger or loved one, and was passed down to her after sleeping with her boyfriend. The only people who can see the entity are those who have, at some point, been cursed by it. Throughout the movie, the entity relentlessly follows Jay, however, it can only walk; not run. The majority of the movie is spent simply showing us how Jay and her group of friends manage to avoid being captured by the entity. Near the end of the film, Jay and her friends set up a trap at a closed public pool to try and …show more content…
Some say the film is about the dangers of STD’s, others say it is a representation of the horrors of transitioning from innocence to adulthood, others say that it is a metaphor for the contradictory combination of social stigma of and the peer pressure to partake in casual sex. It could even be argued that the movie shows the trials of suffering from a mental illness. The reason that there are so many theories is because virtually all of them can be supported by the content. The curse itself is, by definition, a sexually transmitted disease, which corresponds with the STD analyzation of the movie. The curse that constantly follows you after sleeping with another cursed person could represent the social stigma of sex, and the need to ‘pass it on’ order to get rid of it aligns with the peer pressure theory. Jay and the other cursed people being the only ones able to see the entity mirrors someone with a mental illness and how only they truly understand what they are experiencing. All of these analyses feed off of two things: suspense and abject imagery, which are also the movie’s two biggest features. Because the monster of this movie moves slowly and with a predictable path, there are no ‘jump scares’ where the monster appears quickly out of nowhere to shock the viewer. There are no times when you don’t know what the creature is doing. While this may not seem very frightening for a horror …show more content…
While some horror films have dramatic, bombastic soundtracks that appear out of science to shock the viewers, It Follows has a much more subtle way to evoke fear in its audience. The music in the movie almost never starts off loud. In fact, it usually begins at a level that is almost impossible to hear and. As the soundtrack slowly crescendos, the background noise becomes quieter, until the sounds of the score have completely drowned out the sounds from the scene. The score mainly consist of digitally-rendered ambient sounds along with synthesizers and percussion instruments. In scenes where the monster is pursuing one of the characters, it is not uncommon to hear a deep, steady beat pulsing in the background. This steady repetition and slow buildup are common motifs in the soundtrack that almost seem to mirror the monster’s own actions. Steady drum beats mimic the monster’s steady footsteps. The gradual increase of volume and complexity of the music often signifies the gradual approach of the creature. One particular scene makes me think of this connection. In the scene, Jay and her friends have left their town and gone to a beach in hopes of escaping the monster, if only temporarily. At one point, all are sitting on the shore quietly resting, while in the far background you can see the monster approaching slowly. As soon as the monster is visible, distorted synthesizers and steady