"It Follows" (2015)

Watched "It Follows" (2015). I think "It Follows" could be this generation's "Halloween". Putting aside the fact that director David Robert Mitchell seems to be paying homage to it, both in it's visual style and it's pulsating electronic score, here we seemingly have another case of a little indie horror film that could. Much like "Halloween" did back in 1978, this film has been picking up quite a bit of word of mouth and garnering some great reviews along the way, and now having seen it, I can see why. This film takes what has become a very tired sub-genre of horror, the slasher film, and essentially turns it on it's head. It does so by creating an antagonist that doesn't wear a mask, brandish a machete or spout bad one liners, but in fact is much closer to what Michael Myers was in "Halloween" than in any of the sequels or it's countless clones. That's because the "It" in "It Follows" is not a character but rather a mysterious, unstoppable force that just keeps coming, and is relentless in it's pursuit of the film's main character (played by Maika Monroe of "The Guest"). We don't why it's doing what it's doing or how all this came about to begin with - we just know that "it" is. And it's that unknown factor that makes the film so scary and which kept me on the edge of my seat. As much as I do love this film however, I pray it doesn't end up with a bunch of sequels, with each trying to explain more about the nature of "it", as that just would completely undermine why this film works so well. I'm not saying this movie is perfect by any means (then again neither is "Halloween", but that doesn't mean I would want anything changed about it or love it any less) or that it's going to create a whole new sub-genre in it's wake. However, I am saying that "It" works and works really well, and is certainly a breath of fresh air when compared to the trite that studios have been passing off as horror lately. 9 out of 10 for me.