IT FOLLOWS : Creeping flesh

A supernatural force hunts down teens in it Follows, and it will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Welcome to the freshest, scariest horror movie in years.

Director David Robert Mitchell

Starring Maika Monroe, Heather Fairbanks, Linda Boston

If you’re looking for 2015’s must-see horror, then look no further than David Robert Mitchell’s cult-in-the-making It Follows. While Hollywood’s upcoming scare-slate looks to be playing it safe with the usual sequels and remakes (Insidious 3, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension and Friday The 13th, among others) Mitchell’s sophomore effort after his 2010 indie gem The Myth Of The American Sleepover is following an altogether different path.

Taking familiar tropes – sexed-up teens, coming-of-age, the ’burbs, shape-shifting presence – and mashing them into something chillingly unique, it’s the smartest scary movie since Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard penned The Cabin In The Woods. After all, not many horror movies get to make their bow in Critic’s Week at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, and this eerily timeless tale immediately made a splash. “The most exciting film in Cannes has landed,” wrote one critic, “like some terrifying spectre on the beach.”

The ‘It’ of the title can take any form – everything from a vampire boy to a lumbering giant to one of your friends – but what’s really scary is how it stalks its victim at a calm-butrelentless walking pace. You can run, as they say, but you can’t hide – as luckless 19 year-old Jay (Maika Monroe, breakout star of this year’s The Guest) discovers after an innocent sexual encounter, when her casual lover informs her that she’s next on the creature’s hit-list.

The premise, says Mitchell, came from a recurring nightmare he had growing up in Michigan, the film’s locale. “I was being followed by something that would look like different people,” says Mitchell. “It was always very slow, and I was the only one who could see it in the nightmare. And so it was easy to get away from it, but the fact it was always walking towards me was incredibly disturbing. It was an anxiety dream.”

A creepy foundation, but it’s only the barest outline in a story that’s rich with metaphor; as the freaked-to-hell Jay discovers, the only way to rid herself of its attention is to pass it on to another by having sex with them. Far more sophisticated than the typical horror staple – that the promiscuous are nailed-on victims – “the characters open themselves up to danger through sex, but sex is also the thing that maybe can at least temporarily free them,” says Mitchell.

Drawing from the sexual anxieties of early Cronenberg, Mitchell is also clearly enamoured by the suburban settings and synth scores of Carpenter’s Halloween. Yet there’s a timeless quality to It Follows, which uses design elements from various decades – or even non-existent ones (like the cell phone/e-reader shaped like a seashell). “It’s really about placing the film outside of time – something that’s maybe closer to a dream,” says Mitchell.

Impressively, Mitchell savours his shocks, rarely resorting to cheap scares to send shivers down the spine. The opening is a fine example as a distressed young girl runs from her house, screeches in her car to the beach and calls her parents, telling them how much she loves them. Next shot? The girl is dead, her leg horribly mangled, showing just what the creature can do if you ever let it catch up with you.

“This film is more about dread, anxiety and waiting for something,” says Mitchell. “That to me is what the film is built on. Again, it’s about being able to see the frame and being able to see into the distance and that there is something disturbing about being asked to participate in the film in that way. You’ll be scanning the frame and looking into the background and looking into the distance, and you’re looking for something before the character can see it.”

It’s certainly a huge departure from Mitchell’s sweet, romantic debut, which was made for $30,000 and also bowed in Cannes. This time, he had more money, but more logistical problems – from numerous locations to some hair-raising VFX. Still, with It Follows’ transforming terror touching on classic horror archetypes along the way, the result is both smart and scary. And, yes, viewers have had nightmares, Mitchell reports. “Many people have been quite freaked out,” he smiles. “I have mixed feelings – I feel very bad but also very happy!” TF