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It Follows (2015), Unrated, ★★★1/2

What is Jay thinking? What is following her?
This horror film mystified me because I have heard that it is going about a young girl running away from a supernatural cause and I thought to myself, "Ok, I have heard this storyline many times of a girl being chased around by something or someone in their underwear..." That's in about 100 horror films but this horror film is different all around in terms of context and pretty close to originality as far as I'm concerned.

Jay (Maika Monroe) is on a date with Hugh (Jake Weary) at the movies. While waiting in line, Hugh comments that the children are lucky to have such sweet, innocent and carefree lives. When they go into the theater, Hugh sees a young woman at the entrance. He points her out to Jay, but, she cannot see her. That event tempts Hugh get scared and demands to Jay to leave the theater with him.

On their next date, Jay and Hugh have sex in the car and then he suddenly chloroforms her. When Jay awakens, she is tied up to a wheelchair and Hugh explains to her why she is strapped on to the wheelchair. It is not a spoiler because it is in the trailer but Hugh has a passed a curse on to her. The curse is an entity that can only be seen by the person with the curse. It can take any form of a person and if "IT" catches her, it kills her and will go to the previous curse and that would be Hugh to pass the curse to somebody else.

When Hugh drops Jay at home and continues to flee, the police are searching for Hugh, but are unable to find him. While at school, Jay spots an old woman in a hospital gown approaching her and all of the other students look at her with questionability. Jay's friend, Paul, and her sister, Kelly help her along with a few other friends as they all agree to spend the night in the same house.


This is one of the scariest movies I have seen recently and I think that this could be a film that older and more mature high schoolers watch because this is sort of a life lesson and the filmmakers were astute to spin around and make it an effective teenage horror film. It starts out with a sort-of-cliched but very scary opening which sort of rips off Scream in one of the best openings to a film. However, it sets up the whole movie and sets up the story real well.

This whole movie is anchored by a terrific performance by Maika Monroe. She controls the movie well within the hypnotic and twisted atmosphere. The further the movie goes, the more interest we pay attention to her as she descends into predictable but terrifying territory.

I said it was predictable as it gets further into the film and it gets a bit "up-in-your-face" and it turns out to a conventional horror-western if you think about it. But, other than that, it is a well-done film regarding what sex will do to you in terms of all the diseases that can creep on you such as STDs. If you think about it, it could potentially become one of the scariest movies ever made and time will tell if it will be. For now, this is the second horror film in a row that has been pretty good, the previous one being The Babadook. This movie will creep up on you when the film is over.

***1/2

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