I’ve heard good things about It Follows. This was the reason I hunted down a copy in the first place to see firsthand what the fuss was about. Unfortunately, I’m not as impressed as I would like to be with his supernatural horror movie.

Jay (Maika Monroe)  is a rather popular teen who is is seeing a a new boyfriend named Hugh. Hugh seems normal enough but at times, he acts weird like he sees people who aren’t really there. Still, it doesn’t happen too often so Jay lets it slide and lets the budding romance prosper. After they do the deed, Hugh unexpectedly hits her with chloroform and ties her down to a wheelchair, when she comes to, he starts blabbing about passing on something to her via intercourse and now she must pass it on to someone else in the same manner. Long story short, if she gets killed by “it”, her supernatural stalker immediately goes after the person who gave “it” to her and continues down the line to its origin.

The film had a nice 80s horror vibe to and it had great camera shots. I noticed that writer director David Robert Mitchell utilized a lot 360 degree panning to establish the environment. In the beginning there was a pretty groteseque death to establish the premise of the story that looked promising. Unfortunately, it was a promise that did not deliver.

My problem with It Follows was that there was really no story progression — no attempt to find out what “it” was or where it came from and why “it” always came in the form of a naked or half naked person. Was it a curse borne from sexual violence, and was it being passed on via intercourse? The film seemed to have hit a snag in the storytelling and stopped at the point where Jay the the was trying to get rid of her mysterious stalker . For half of the movie, there was cliche after cliche about teens and sex and horror movies.

I don’t know if I missed the symbolism in the movie that critics were raving about but for me, the pacing was atrocious and the ending was such a copout that it was super frustrating. The lead stars were not relateable nor charismatic. I kind of liked Jay’s sisters, but there was really nothing that compelled me to root for Jay to live – nothing at all.

All in all, I was sorely disappointed with It Follows. It just didn’t work for me, except almost put me to sleep. It succeeded in building up the suspense but failed to produce a climax or an ending worthy of a decent horror. Too bad.