31 Days of Halloween: It Follows

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and released in 2014, It Follows is one of the best horror films in recent memory. The film currently sits at well over 90% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. It has received critical acclaim and counts people like Quentin Tarantino among its fans. It is not a perfect film; it falls apart a bit in its third act. What it does have in spades though is style. It is both beautifully shot and extremely atmospheric. Mitchell created a very pretty film. The actors in this flick, most of whom are relatively unknown (to me at least), turn in a hell of a performance. The scripting is solid, the music is perfectly suited for the visuals, and the story is deep and creative. What story you ask?

Imagine, you are in high school. You are dating someone, boy or girl you do you boo, and you have a secret. Not a secret like most of us have had secrets in high school. Not a secret like you are into something you may feel weird about. No, a secret about what happens to your partner when you have sex. See, after having sex, you transfer a… thing to your partner. This thing can take any form it chooses, be it a young child or old woman and everything in between, and stalks you. Relentlessly. There is nothing that will stop it from coming to kill you. The mythology goes that it will kill the currently marked person and then make its way backward jumping throughout the collective sexual history of its own timeline. The main character of the film, a college girl named Jay, gets marked after having sex with her boyfriend in the back of a car. (classy AF) What follows is the story of a girl trying to learn about what is stalking her, running from said thing, and trying to survive with the help of her friends. It’s brilliant and scary and intense as all get out. If you haven’t seen it, watch the trailer below and pick up a copy. Watch it with friends and share it with loved ones. Hit me up on twitter, @geekadedan, and let me know what you thought.