It Follows (R)
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review sites: It Follows; Dread Central; Kindertrauma; Modern Horrors
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This movie came out in 2015, but I didn't see it until 2025. It did very well critically, and I can definitely understand that. But while I did like it, I'm afraid I didn't like it as much as most critics did. The premise was interesting and deeply unnerving, and the execution of the story was fine. But something about the film didn't fully work for me, and I'm not sure why.

It begins with a young woman running out of her house one night, apparently pursued by something unseen. She drives to the beach, calls her father to tell him she loves him, and then we see her disfigured corpse the next morning.

The story then switches to a college student named Jay, who goes out with a guy named Hugh. At the end of their date, they have sex in his car, after which he chloroforms her. She wakes up tied to a wheelchair, and he tells her he had passed on a curse to her. Something would begin following her, and it could look like anyone, whether a stranger or a loved one. If it caught up to her, it would kill her, and then kill Hugh, and continue working its way backward through the chain of people who had contracted the curse. Jay's only hope is to pass the curse on to someone else through sex, but even after that she would still be able to see the thing that follows, it just wouldn't be following her anymore. (Unless it kills the person she passes it on to, of course.)

It's not long after this that Jay begins seeing strange people following her, at different times. She manages to keep ahead of each one of them, but is terribly frightened. She has a group of friends who help her out, though they can't see the person who follows her, and it takes awhile for them to believe it's really happening. They include her sister, Kelly, and their friends Paul and Yara. Paul fairly obviously has a crush on Jay, but for most of the movie he doesn't really do or say much about it. Though once he and the others accept the reality of the curse, you can kinda tell he wants to be the one Jay passes it on to (both because of his crush and because he legitimately wants to help her). Meanwhile, the group gets help from a guy named Greg. They try to get away from the thing that follows, and eventually come up with a plan to try to kill it.

I don't want to spoil any more of what happens. I can't say I liked everything that happens in the movie, but again, I can't quite put my finger on why. Overall, I thought it was a good, scary story. I can't really say too much about the movie's symbolism, whether the entity is supposed to represent an STD, or just adulthood, or whatever. But the surface-level danger is enough to make it an interesting and memorable horror movie. (Mostly psychological horror, but obviously there's a vague supernatural element to it.) There's supposed to be a sequel at some point, and I look forward to seeing that.