Nightmares often feel like B
grade horror movies. They are illogical, unexplainable, almost entirely
plot-less, with barely a hint of character development. The difference is that
bad horror movies can easily be dismissed by getting our rear ends out of the
theater (or by a flick of a remote). But we cannot shake the lingering impact
of a nightmare by simply waking up. Those can only resulted from a terrifying,
sweat-inducing nightmare. Or a very good horror movie.
2014, in my humble opinion, has
been an interesting year for horror movies, especially the indie ones. The stylish and intense ‘The Babadook’ by Jennifer Kent
garnered positive buzz and lived up to that buzz, to certain extent (I
personally thought the climax was poorly handled especially compared to the
arresting and masterful first hour). Then there were the lesser seen but
equally disturbing ‘The Canal’ (an Irish equivalent of ‘The Ring’), ‘Honeymoon’
(in which newlyweds’ happiest time was cut short by the slowly changing
behavior of the other half. Just wait until you see a f*cked up scene where the
husband pulled out something from his wife’s…from his wife’s—um, or you know
what, just cover your eyes and scream expletives for five straight minutes like
I did when you watch this) and the hilarious send up to every vampire movie
ever made from New Zealand, ’What We Do in the Shadows’. Now, ‘It Follows’, a simple,
straightforward horror movie from David Robert Mitchell deserves to be placed
near the top of those interesting indie
horror movies in 2014, if only because it is the only movie that actually
resembles an actual nightmare to the point where I feel like puking from 90
minutes of constant nervousness. And I watch horror movies regularly. The last movie that managed to reduce me into shriveling,
pants-wetting, inconsolable mess of a toddler was the Japanese version of ‘The
Ring’, and the most recent one, ‘Noroi
(The Curse)‘(2005)’, also from Japan (Yes, when J-horror works, it works like
nobody’s business. it is as if the devils have taken up residency in the heads
of Japanese horror filmmakers and produced celluloid footage from hell. And I
mean this to be the highest compliment).[1]
The reason why ‘It Follows’ works
on a primal level is due to its simplicity. It could have easily been a story
told around a campfire, during sleepovers or during an especially creepy overnight
drive across the woods— if you’re feeling like being a d*ck to your friends. It
is a story of Jay (played by the permanently vulnerable looking Maika Monroe) a
teenage girl who, after a first night of passion with her boyfriend got
transmitted with, not so much a disease but more of a curse. The curse being
that from now on, Jay will be constantly pursued by ‘it’. This ‘it’ in question
can take a form of anybody, from her loved ones like her parents and friends to
an old lady in campus, a naked woman in an abandoned building, an impossibly
tall man in the house, and so on. While this ‘it’ may seems like any other
people on the street, Jay (and we) can distinguish ‘it’ almost immediately the
moment ‘it’ appears on screen—even in wide shots—since this ‘it’ usually walks alone,
slowly and deliberately (with vacant stare to boot since this is a horror
movie) straight towards Jay—and us—without anyone seemingly able to see it. We
were informed by the douche ex-boyfriend and the nihilistic prologue that once
‘it’ reaches its target, ‘it’ will kill the said target in a gruesome manner.
For temporary solace from the ever-persistent ‘it’, one must barricade
him/herself in a closed room or building (a word of caution however, ‘it’ can
throw rocks at the window and make its dreaded entrance from there). Or, one
can transfer the curse by having sexual relations with another person. But
here’s the catch, if that transferee is eventually killed by ‘it’, ‘it’ will
move up the chain and pursue you (or in this case, Jay), again, all the way
until it reaches patient zero.
Having read the plot and watched the movie, I am quite certain that other horror hounds will find this movie unique, intriguing, haunting, even depressing since the conclusion to Jay’s fate seems inevitable. Like, how can you get away from something that will eventually find out where you are? How will you be able to sleep knowing that at any minute ‘it’ can break through an open window and get you? How can you explain to anybody of this thing that keeps following you when nobody but yourself can see it? Simply put, it’s like mortgage or tax debts only with creepy faces slapped on it.
However, herein lies my problem with this movie, especially the final hour. It does not end the way that I (and I assume also many viewers) expected. Usually in horror movies—or most movies for that matter—endings that defy expectations are mostly welcome, but not if the circumstances surrounding the main character seems to lead the character—and us—towards a clear conclusion. During a particularly confusing climax, the movie bent its rules (or added a new rule) that seriously diminished the tension that came before. And what a tense first hour it was. The director, David Robert Mitchell has successfully (at least for most of the running time) held me hostage. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to. Not until I know what will become of Jay and her group of offbeat friends, who eventually banded together to outrun the nameless entity. Will Jay ‘transfer’ the curse to Paul, whom she cares, or to any other boy in the risk that if that person dies, Jay will have to once again flee for her life? Or who knows, maybe Jay will try to reason with the nagging supernatural entity and they’ll both be BFF and paint each other’s fingernails in the end.
Having read the plot and watched the movie, I am quite certain that other horror hounds will find this movie unique, intriguing, haunting, even depressing since the conclusion to Jay’s fate seems inevitable. Like, how can you get away from something that will eventually find out where you are? How will you be able to sleep knowing that at any minute ‘it’ can break through an open window and get you? How can you explain to anybody of this thing that keeps following you when nobody but yourself can see it? Simply put, it’s like mortgage or tax debts only with creepy faces slapped on it.
However, herein lies my problem with this movie, especially the final hour. It does not end the way that I (and I assume also many viewers) expected. Usually in horror movies—or most movies for that matter—endings that defy expectations are mostly welcome, but not if the circumstances surrounding the main character seems to lead the character—and us—towards a clear conclusion. During a particularly confusing climax, the movie bent its rules (or added a new rule) that seriously diminished the tension that came before. And what a tense first hour it was. The director, David Robert Mitchell has successfully (at least for most of the running time) held me hostage. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to. Not until I know what will become of Jay and her group of offbeat friends, who eventually banded together to outrun the nameless entity. Will Jay ‘transfer’ the curse to Paul, whom she cares, or to any other boy in the risk that if that person dies, Jay will have to once again flee for her life? Or who knows, maybe Jay will try to reason with the nagging supernatural entity and they’ll both be BFF and paint each other’s fingernails in the end.
The stretched out tension, boo
moments-free, and low body count nature of this film reminds me of Ti West’s ‘The
House of the Devil’ (2009), a horror movie of the recent past disguised as an 80s
horror film, and the classic ‘Halloween’ (1978). Even the look and sounds of
this movie seems to be deliberately engineered to resemble ‘Halloween’, right
down to its unstoppable pursuer. This is not a bad thing, as ‘It Follows’
operates with a distinctive set of rules and has a slightly different tricks up
it sleeve. If not for that questionable climax, this movie would have been a
perfect pressure cooker of fear. But then again, we never do get a satisfying ending
to a nightmare since it is always cut short by our gasps or screams when we
wake. What linger first are our heartbeats, the creepy bits and pieces, and the
feeling that says, had we stayed longer in that dream, that someone—that something is going to get us. Who knows
whether we’d still be able to wake up screaming after that.
Dio
Jakarta, 2 June 2015
[1] Special mention has to be
made of an Australian horror film called ‘The Reef’ (2010) about passengers of
a capsized yacht at the Great Barrier Reef who are being hunted by a Great
White Shark. If this scenario alone does not make you want to ditch that scuba
diving plan and vow your allegiance to land-based vacations, I don’t know what
will.
