It Follows, David Robert Mitchell's slow-burn horror film from 2014 was one of the scariest films of the 2010s. The film follows Jay Height (Maika Monroe), a young woman who, after a sexual encounter, is stalked by an entity that can appear as anyone, and stops at nothing to find and kill whoever it's following. Why? It's for you to find out as the plot device is one of the most original and effective to appear in horror in recent years. Traditional villains? What for?
The subtle eeriness of the movie's tone and the creepiness of its overall story brought chills to the horror community's spines and shook independent horror circles, establishing the director as a natural storyteller of the weird kind. But what was it about the film that made it so terrifying and memorable? Let's take a deeper look and find out.
The Sexual Collective
The film's allegory to the danger and permanence of STDs is remarkably well-known at first glance. There's a reason why Jay is suffering from a disease and that's because she slept with the wrong guy. This transcends the fiction aspect of the plot and touches a nerve that few horror films touch. Cronenberg was famous for including some kind of wink or commentary in his earlier films, and he basically weaponized graphic cinema to frighten the audience and make them believe sex and promiscuity could be lethal.
In It Follows, scrutiny comes early for Jay, and from the start, the audience believes she's to be blamed for her decisions. But after the film's opening scene, audience members still haven't recovered from the first kill. This is a gruesome example of what the unseen entity can do, and if that's the result of having sex with the wrong person, then yes, fear has been installed. For what remains of the film, we still keep on thinking how this could have been prevented. Sex is natural and primal, and it becomes a priority for when we really start thinking about the events on the screen. If It Follows had been made in the '90s instead of the 2010s, imagine the association with the AIDS epidemic the film would have had.
Everyone Is a Threat
One of the scariest aspects of It Follows is the fact that the entity can take on the appearance of anyone and everyone. Jay has to constantly be cognizant of all the people around her, including her most trusted friends and family members. There is no level of comfort, as in the film, the entity even takes on the appearance of an elderly lady in a hospital gown, showing no bounds on how helpless it can appear. Jay is only able to trust her closest friends, and only because they're always within her vision.
Even the way the story starts is born from betrayal, as the man that Jay sleeps with was only doing it to transmit the entity onto her, in hopes that it would buy him more time against it. From then on, it was clear that no one could be trusted, in the most seemingly consensual and intimate circumstances. Even though the ending is a bit ambiguous, it's theorized that the entity has taken on the appearance of both Jay's mother and father. When her friends ask her who she sees toward the climax, she's visibly upset, and responds with "I don't want to tell you."
Always Being Aware
There isn't much freedom in living a life where you constantly have to be looking over your shoulder. This is the case for Jay, as the entity never stops following her. Little can be done to buy time, but luckily, the entity moves at a slow pace. Jay has to constantly be on the move, and can never allow herself to find the relaxation, relief, or sleep needed to carry on with a healthy, sane life.
By the end of the film, Jay is so exhausted from constantly being aware, that she's ready to give up. She's barely able to hold it together; it's only by the help of her best friends that she's able to see it through to the end, and eventually destroy (?) the entity. When your mind isn't clear during even normal circumstances, fear can seep in and take over easily. Let alone, in a situation where the risks of danger of death are high.
Feeling On Your Own
Jay's friends may be involved in the centralized story, but initially, there is little they can do against the entity that is stalking Jay. Not only can they not see what's after her, even when it's in the same room, but it also has no interest in them, easily casting them aside when they get in its way. Because the entity is essentially invisible to others, Jay has no way of proving or explaining what is happening to her, to anyone other than those that have either been affected by it or are among her most trusted companions. The situation is essentially gaslighting her by making her look crazy, as she has no real ways to convince anyone otherwise.
In this way, It Follows acts as somewhat of an isolation horror film, as the entity is keeping Jay in a state of aloneness, preying on her inability to get help; the only time she's able to get more information and talk about what's happening is through the conversations with Hugh, the man who transfers the entity to her in the first place.
Disassociating For Survival
By the end of It Follows, Jay has had to disassociate from her own morality and do the right thing, all for survival. Once she realizes the only way to actually buy time from the entity is to transfer the entity to others, the film alludes to Jay sleeping with three random men without telling them of the entity that would come after them. Because they had no idea what was in store, the entity dispatches them and is after Jay quickly; she sold three lives for mere hours of survival... which isn't indicative of Jay's actions before the events of the movie took place.
By the conclusion, Jay might as well be a different person; her exhaustion, disassociation, and fear have taken such a toll on her, that it's hard to believe she still has the strength to take on the entity. The real kicker is, that while the protagonists in It Follows believe they've dispatched the entity, they never really know, leading to the audience still looking over her shoulder, even in the last shot of the film.