Hot Pursuit

DISCLAIMER: EVERYTHING FROM HERE ON BELOW IS AT MINIMUM 6 YEARS OLD AND OUT OF DATE! BUT….POSTERITY?

Horror is created with minimal effects, and suspense trumps all in David Robert Mitchell’s (writer/director) stylish film It Follows.(2014)

Oh sweet, sweet nostalgia

Oh sweet, sweet nostalgia

Right from the film’s opening sequence (a bewildered young girl flees from something invisible), It Follows has a retro vibe. It’s closed in suburb streets evoke Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and a host of others. The eerie synth pop and heart pounding booms of music lend well to this vintage feel. In fact, the entire film is set in some alternate, unknown era with minimal technology and heavy floral patterns. This inexplicably dated timelessness works. It has the viewer feeling like something is familiar. ….but just a little off.

It Follows is the story of a curse, transmitted by sex, that leaves it’s victims with far worse than a course of antibiotics and an embarrassing itch. This curse unleashes ‘It’. It can take the form of any human. And it’s scary power? Walking purposefully towards you.

Doesn’t sound scary, I know, but within minutes after our heroine Jay (Maika Monroe) is infected, she is being pursued by It. It looks perfectly human, except for that dead eyed stare that penetrates your very soul. Can anyone relate to that feeling of wanting to lean away from the TV when the ghost/killer/demon approaches it?? Yeah, that’s this whole movie.

Jay learns from her (now ex) boyfriend that she must stay away, she must evade this thing, and she must pass it on. And that next victim must live and pay it forward, because it keeps coming back. If the next person dies, it comes for her again. Not so subtle subtext about thinking before you get busy, yes? The consequences could be dire, could be lurking, searching for you, waiting to end it all. Life changing repercussions, indeed.

Jay, with the help of a crew of fairly typical teens, manages to evade It over and over, all the while convincing the others that it is real. Did I mention that you can only see it if you are infected?? Enter the ‘everyone thinks I’m crazy’ subplot.

This film manages to create a very viable sense of doom and dread and, admittedly some pulse pounding scares. What makes it innovative is that it does this on the strength of tone and suspense alone. It doesn’t rely on cgi nor on gore and shock value. Though there is a scene in which It makes invisible (laughable) cgi contact with a victim, the moment serves more to convince Jays friends of its seriousness than the viewer. Somehow, right from its first shadowy stroll towards Jay, staring purposefully into her eyes, we are convinced. We know this isn’t something you want catching up with you, and we don’t need to figure out exactly why to turn and run.

That feeling of being followed, pursued, by something relentless (not to mention shape-shifting into some fairly disconcerting individuals ) is what drives this film. It cuts to the core of fear, it feels like a recurring nightmare and it is shockingly effective.

Monroe, as our lead actress, is adept, and the best of the bunch. Her counterparts tend to feel a little wooden and weak. Character development, for that matter is virtually non existent, and is something that could’ve been improved, but doesn’t detract significantly.

The set design is clever, and lends to that unsettling tone, as each room and home feels somehow frozen in an unidentifiable time. The film seems to be set in Detroit (though it’s not directly expressed) and the city’s abandoned streets and homes feel lonesome and menacing, hopeless and insidious. The setting feels almost like a character in itself, this bleak and unsafe land that surrounds the group. The kids discuss being taught the safe zones of the suburbs, the volatile sense of the city. It looms over them, offering no solace.

It Follows is a film that feels like the sort they just don’t make anymore. It scares, for real, with an unexplored monster, a slow and plodding thing that has you in its sights. And it follows.

The horror hating husband watched this one with me, and later expressed that we have too many windows in our house, thank you very much.

Life lessons (I’ve been slipping, I know)
1. I can’t say this enough, keep it in your pants!! This is the ultimate ‘never have sex’ horror-rule movie.
2. I don’t care how much you disrespect your mother, you wake that bitch up and you get her involved.
3. Never take running shoes for granted.
4. Know your exits.
5. Watch your back. Always watch your back.

No matter what, it follows.

 

Of Dolls and Other Demons

Finally! I’ve been itching to see this one, and have been unable to find someone I could drag with me. The husband eventually caved and agreed, though he was already cowering at the Insidious 2 trailer. He’s a good guy.

The Conjuring begins in a very run of the mill way. Perhaps I am a little jaded by now, but the first hour of the film felt very reminiscent of The Amityville Horror and a number of other haunted house flicks we’ve seen before. A family moves into a spacious old country home, the dog is freaked out (come on!), the dog dies (spoiler alert, but if you’ve ever seen a horror movie EVER you’ll see this  coming a mile away), clocks mysteriously stop in the middle of the night (yawn), a boarded up basement is discovered (hey, we should explore this dusty closed off room!), a child talks to an imaginary friend (Jodie, Tony, yadda yadda). Typical. So typical in fact that while trying to ease the pain on the husband, I was able to prepare him for each and every scare for at least forty minutes. And I mean to the second. As in, cue boom of music, cut to me whispering…1…2..3….now. I didn’t miss a one. I’d like to note that I’ve somehow italicized this paragraph and cannot seem to undo it, so enjoy!

The acting is solid, the set design is truly gorgeous (haunted or not, I was ready to move into the Perron home), and the music is highly effective (which, truly, is an essential component to horror). I’ve been interested in this one for some time. As one of the fifteen people to actually watch A&E’s ghost hunting show of a few years ago, Paranormal State, I recognized the name of Lorraine Warren. I recalled the Warren’s connection to many cases of alleged demonic infestation, including the Amityville case.  I was pumped to see this biopic of sorts, and from the moment the film began, I was impressed with Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of Lorraine. Her mannerisms are spot on! As far as Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren, I can’t say as much. He had a tendency to pick up and lose his accent and seemed to be playing Patrick Wilson tough, Patrick Wilson scared. That being said, he isn’t distractingly bad, just not noticeably impressive. The actors playing the Perron family, including Lili Taylor as mom and Ron Livingston (Berger!) as Dad and a flock of daughters are adept, save for Taylor’s sickening sweetness in the beginning of the film. James Wan does a skillful job of creating characters the audience wants more of and that viewers can begin to care about.

I was beginning to get discouraged by the lack of original scares and the heavy presence of we’ve seen it before scares. Things were feeling painfully typical for the first hour.  Luckily, I did eventually get a bit of an unexpected jump (yes, many a jump scare in this one, but effective, none the less). Thank goodness, I was already writing a scathing review in my head.

James Wan has certainly established a style for his scares. He favors claustrophobic shots, eerie things posted within his actors personal space, looming over shoulders, close enough to smell their breath. He uses some angles that twist the viewer’s head and disorient our line of vision. Upside down shots, swooping and twisting, continuous shots following characters through rooms, constant movement, letting us feel swept along. The story is in control, we are just along for the ride.

I won’t give away too much, and there can hardly be much I  can offer that hasn’t been said. WordPress is saturated with reviews of this film. The most intriguing aspect of the film is the history of the Warrens. Sure, the Perron story is where the scares lie, but I was left wanting more Warren. And it sounds like it’s in the works. This one certainly seems to offer options in that direction. On that note, however, we aren’t left at the end of this film with a sense of dread, which has become the norm lately. We are left with a sense that everything is wrapped up nicely and if we find ourselves plagued by demons, we know who to call.

There are some solid scares, many cheap jump scares and bait and switch scares, but once the film ramps up, there are some very tense moments involving a rather frantic exorcism and some very tight spaces that, combined with skillful acting, prove to be very convincing. Is it free of cheesiness? Not entirely, no. Was I terrified? No. did I cover my eyes? No. Did I spend time whispering what has happening to my husband, who was and did? You better believe it.

This film banks on acting, character development, and truly captivating directing style. Gore is not a factor in this one, which, after seeing Evil Dead feels awfully refreshing. It is solid and creepy, and I’ll likely feel compelled to watch it again.It is worth a watch, especially if you felt unnerved by Insidious. Or The Amityville Horror for that matter.

I’m left wanting to dig further to see how much merit lies in the ‘based on a true story’ tag.