IT FOLLOWS (2014)
Label: Second Sight Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: 15 Cert.
Duration: 100 Minutes
Audio: Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary
The David Robert Mitchell (Under the Silver Lake) directed It Follows (2014) opens with a teenage girl running panicked from her house, seemingly pursued by an unseen assailant, later sitting alone on a beach she calls her parents and tells them she loves him and she's sorry for any trouble she might have caused. The next morning her horrifically twisted and broken corpse is seen on that same beach. We then meet college student Jay Height (Maika Monroe, Independence Day: Resurgence), and her sister Kelly and longtime friends Paul (Keir Gilchrist, Dark Summer) and Yara (Olivia Luccardi, Channel Zero: Butcher's Block). Later on a date with her new boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary, Zombeavers) they have sex in his car, but afterward he chloroforms her, and she wakes up a short time later cuffed to a wheelchair in an abandoned building. He tells her she needs to listen to him, that by having sex with her he passed a fatal curse of some sort, and that she will be pursued by a supernatural shape-shifting entity that can take on the form of anyone, it could be someone she knows, a stranger, anybody... and that if it gets to her it will kill her, much the way it did the young woman at the start of the film. The only recourse she has is to pass the curse onto someone else through sex, but if they are killed by the entity it will again pursue her, and if it kills her it will go after High, and so on. It's also stated that the entity only travels at a walking pace, so she's gotta stay ahead of it by putting some distance between herself and it, and have sex with someone else. She doesn't believe him at first, but when an ominous looking naked woman shows up she becomes an instant believer. Hugh takes her home and drops her off, now it's following her.
This is a flick that was ultra-hyped when it first started making the rounds, by the time I got around to watching it I was a bit jaded the endless praise, but I will tell you what, it's the rare film that actually not only lived up to the hyperbole lauded upon it, but it exceeded my expectations and still holds up years later. It feels modern but also vintage, perhaps because of the weird retro near-future aesthetic, having been shot in a run down neighborhood in Detroit it feels lived in, actually quite desolate in fact, and then there's this the sort of future-tech device that Yara reads from, it's like a Kindle bit housed in a clam-shell like device that looks a bit like a woman's compact mirror, which is another curious element.
The generally uneasy tone of the film is also key to it's success, enhanced by the electronic score from Disasterpeace, a distorted, throbbing John Carpenter-esque slice of synth that helps the flick get under your skin. The cast is pretty uniformly strong, particularly lead Maika Monroe, who is quite likable and really is torn about passing the curse along to someone else, though she eventual does, first to a neighbor boy who doesn't truly believe in the entity, then, it's implied, to a group of men on fishing boat, and later to her sex-pest pal.
Also adding to the nightmare like atmosphere is the way the entity appears to the afflicted, it can be someone they know, a stranger, a loved one, it could be anyone - so those who are cursed have to be hyper-vigilant not to be caught unaware, and the striking cinematography by Mike Gioulakis (John Dies at the End, Us, Glass) has a leering over the shoulder quality that will have you exploring every frame of the screen looking for the entity, which also made me uneasy. The look of the entity is ever changing but never not super-creepy, appearing a men and women who are often naked, wounded, or just upsettingly weird for one reason or another; it appears as a woman pissing herself, some poor kid's mother murdering him, a lumbering giant, a nude guy standing on the roof, it's all unnerving and upsetting and adds to the nightmare vibes.
I pretty much loved everything about this movie, I loved the way it channel and modernizes John Carpenter's Halloween, subverting the suburbs of Haddonfield by depicting a crumbling almost dystopian neighborhood that was once probably middle class but has crumbled, The Shape now a shape-shifting sex-demon entity, plus the pulsating synth-score... there's a lot of familiarity, but it's also a new spin on classic ideas, and regardless of what your read on it is the pure chilling vibe of this one makes it an instant classic in my book, I've re-watched this no less than six time since my first viewing and it keeps getting better with each new watch - this is a stone-cold creepy classic, and it's looks terrific on UHD from Second Sight Films.
Audio/Video: The digitally shot It Follows (2014) arrives on region-free 4K UHD from Second Sight Films framed in 2.35:1 widescreen with a brand new 4K master produced in conjunction with the original post production facility, and approved by director David Robert Mitchell. I tried to dig out my Blu-ray from the collection to compare this with but it seems to have gone missing (OK, who borrowed my It Follows?) and we were only sent the stand alone 4K release for review with no accompanying Blu-ray, so no comparison this time. On it's own though the 4K resolution really draws out the detail in facial features and surface textures, colors are well-saturated, the Dolby Vision (HDR10 Compatible) WCG color-grade punches-up the primaries quite nicely, the reds have a subtle pop to them, and the blacks are quite pleasing with nuanced shadow detail. Depth and clarity were also very pleasing. Audio comes byway of a Dolby Atmos remix that pumps up the previous DTS-HD 5.1 track quite nicely with immersive use of surrounds and height channels. The bass response is outstanding, and the Carpenter-esque synth score by video game music composer Rich Vreeland aka Disasterpeace ( Under the Silver Lake) really shines it's ominous, distorted electronic tones deep and strong.
Second Sight have really gone all-out for extras on this release, we start of with two brand new commentaries, the first is an new Audio Commentary by critic/academic Joshua Grimm, plus an archival Audio commentary by Danny Leigh and Mark Jancovich - neither of which I have listened to yet.
Also new are the 19-min Chasing Ghosts: a new interview with actor Keir Gilchrist, the 12-min Following: a new interview with actor Olivia Luccardi; the 23-min It's in the House: an interview with Producer David Kaplan; the 13-min Composing a Masterpiece: an interview with composer Rich Vreeland; 24-min A Girl's World: an interview with production designer Michael Perry; and 11-min It Follows - The Architecture of Loneliness: a video essay by Joseph Wallace. I thought it curious that neither director David Robert Mitchell not star Maika Monroe contributed to the extras, which was a disappointment, but the 102-minutes of new interviews and video essay were solid. The single-disc standard edition 4K Ultra HD arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- Second Sight Films 4K master produced in conjunction with the original post production facility, approved by director David Robert Mitchell
UHD presented in Dolby Vision HDR
- New Dolby Atmos audio track produced by Second Sight Films
- New Audio Commentary by Joshua Grimm
- Audio commentary by Danny Leigh and Mark Jancovich
- Chasing Ghosts: a new interview with actor Keir Gilchrist (19:09)
- Following: a new interview with actor Olivia Luccardi (11:57)
- It's in the House: an interview with Producer David Kaplan (22:31)
- Composing a Masterpiece: an interview with composer Rich Vreeland (12:57)
- A Girl's World: an interview with production designer Michael Perry (24:05)
- It Follows - The Architecture of Loneliness: a video essay by Joseph Wallace (11:02)
Purchase the Limited Edition (UHD/BD) and standard release 4K UHD from www.DiabolikDVD.com
