With one of the best openings of any horror film in recent year’s David Robert Mitchell second film turns the US teen romance genre on its head.
Jaime (an excellent Maika Monroe) has sex with her new boyfriend. Immediately after, Hugh (Jake Weary) drugs her. She wakes up, tied to a chair, in a disused factory. Hugh points out of the window and into the distance, where a naked woman is seen approaching them. What Hugh then tells Jaime will transform her life. After the festival success of his low-budget 2010 hit The Myth of the American Sleepover, Mitchell continues to explore teen life with this inspired horror. And it’s all the better for not knowing what the plot is before you see it. Beautifully shot – Mitchell portrays suburbia like a series of Gregory Crewdson photographs – and with a cast who perfectly capture the increasing panic of friends terrorised by an unknown force, It Follows is one of the smartest US horror films of the last decade.
★★★★★ “A modern classic of fear to be compared to something by a young Carpenter or De Palma” - Peter Bradshaw’s Film of the Week, The Guardian
★★★★★ “A contemporary horror fan’s dream come true” - Tim Robey, The Telegraph
