It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)

American teens getting stalked by a malevolent demonic force is hardly new terrain. It Follows is raised above the genre average to a great extent by its obvious influences: Cronenberg for the longueurs and determinedly unphotogenic cast and settings, Carpenter for the soundtrack, and auteurs quite outside the horror genre for techniques such as knowing when to do away with dialogue and elisions in the narrative. The plot itself, which is to do with the key character being slain by a shuffling, motiveless entity unless they pass on the curse through sex, is pretty cursory and playing once again on the guilt-ridden American relationship to the sexual act, but at times it does allude to that paranoia in a wider societal sense, which few horror films have any interest in.

6/10