It Follows Movie Review – Don't Have Sex With Random Strangers

Runtime: 100 minutes
Release Date: March 27, 2015
Rating: R
Director: David Robert Mitchell


Just in case we needed another reason not to have sex with people we just met, here comes It Follows.


A young woman runs out of her house clad only in panties, a tank, and heels. After a neighbor asks if she's okay, her father comes and yells for her. Running back to her house, she runs off and eventually finds her way to the beach, where she spends the night shaking in fear. The following morning, we find her dead on the beach.


It Follows then introduces us to Jay, a pretty blond teenager with a crush on a boy named Hugh. While playing a game in the movie theater, Hugh points out a woman in the back. When Jay doesn't see her, he freaks out and pulls her out of the theater. On their second date, they have sex before he chloroforms her and takes her to an abandoned building. Once there, he tells her that she now has "it" and that "it" will follow her. He shows her a naked woman stalking them and explains that it can take on many different forms and once it kills her, it will come for him. Hugh also warns her to have sex quickly to pass it on to someone else.


After Hugh leaves her partially naked on the road in front of her house, her family rushes her to the hospital. Jay sinks into a deep depression and keeps noticing the weird people that seem to follow her. Though she tries to explain what happened to her sister and friends, no one really seems to believe her until the attacks begin happening. They track down Hugh's former apartment and discover that he rented it under a fake name before actually finding him, but he offers little in the way of help. Jay and her friends finally go away together while she copes with deciding what to do next while it keeps following her.


I have mixed feelings about It Follows. On the one hand, I liked it when I first saw it, though I do wonder if I would have liked it less had I not seen it immediately after Unfriended. On the other hand, there wasn't much memorable about it, and I have to admit that I have a hard time remembering a lot about the movie, even though I just saw it last night.


So many people compare it to classic Hollywood horror films like Halloween, but I actually found the homages a little distracting. It literally seems like the director couldn't decide which decade he wanted the movie set in. Everyone, except for a few people, seem to drive really old cars, no one ever has or uses a cell phone, and the interior of homes seem really outdated, which makes it seem like a 70s or 80s movie. But, one of the characters uses a tablet shaped like a clam shell, which tends to bring it into the modern era. It probably wouldn't bug too many people, but it bothered me for some reason.


It Follows did have some good moments though. Some of the forms that it takes were particularly disturbing. I'm not too crazy about seeing a giant, a deformed kid, or a woman with one breast hanging out turning up in my house. The director also created a great atmosphere with those forms showing up just behind Jay or off to the side of the camera. Unfortunately, I think he took it just a little too far. It literally got to the point where it seemed like there was a "fake it" behind Jay in every scene.


Like I said, I'm a little on the fence about this one. It was a lot better than Unfriended, but I'm not sure if I really liked it as much as I would have, had I watched it on its own.

Unfriended Movie Review – Reminds Me Why I Dislike Most Teens

Runtime: 82 minutes
Release Date: April 17, 2015
Rating: R
Director: Levan Gabriadze


Unfriended opens with a short, very short, description of what happened to a teenage girl named Laura. After getting drunk at a party, someone filmed the aftermath and posted it online, which led to her getting brutally teased and taunted by others online. Unable to cope with their bars, she shot herself in the head, which was also filmed and posted online.


Blaire was one of Laura's closest friends and is chatting with her boyfriend Mitch online on the one year anniversary of her friends suicide. Their talk turns dirty just as their friends start calling. Adam, Ken, and Jess interrupt their Skype call without their permission and notice an unknown person in their call. Despite hanging up and calling each other separately, the person, who has no avatar or photograph, remains on the line.


Assuming it's their friend Val, they call her and put her in the conversation too. Blaire keeps trying to talk with Mitch who doesn't respond. When he finally does, he tells her that someone hacked Laura's account, which leads to her getting a message from her dead friend too. Though she attempts to unfriend the account, the button goes dark and prevents her. She eventually memorializes the account to put an end to the messages.


After typical teenage chitchat, the unknown person in their conversation finally rears its head. Hacking into Jess's Facebook account, the person posts a number of pictures of a drunk Val, which leads to random people telling her to kill herself and taunting her in the same way people once did Laura. Blaming Jess, Val logs out of their conversation. As the night goes on, the person finally reveals her identity and makes it clear that she's out for revenge. Each of the teenagers must slowly reveal some of their own secrets that they hoped would remain hidden.


We sat down and watched an episode of Modern Family a few weeks ago that took place entirely on computer and phone screens. Though it was an interesting premise, it grew tired about halfway through. Take the same idea, multiply it by 2.5, and you'll have Unfriended.


When I found out our local drive in planned to show two horror movies back to back, I knew where I would be that Friday night. Sadly for me, this was the first movie they showed. Despite a supposed run time of 82 minutes, the movie was actually just over an hour long, somewhere around 70 minutes or so. The person next to us screamed that he wanted his money back, and we came across multiple other people who absolutely hated it.


I think the problem was with the way the film plays and not the plot itself. Imagine sitting in a room trapped with five teenagers chatting online. That should give you some idea of this movie. It's literally a group of teens on Skype, sending instant messages, playing music, and talking on their cell phones. I can see why it might appeal to teens, but I think I'm outside its target demographic.


The sad thing is that Unfriended actually had some good scenes. I've never seen someone suffocated to death with a curling iron down the throat, and there was a scene where a camera randomly shows up just behind one of the characters. Those scenes left me wishing the movie had more of those moments. I'm still not even sure if the second movie was that good or if it just looked good in comparison.