This was the film that all the horror fans were talking about – ‘a hark back to the glory days 80’s horror’ they said; ‘a truly terrifying film’ they said.
So after much searching I managed to track it down and started watching prepared for a treat.
Two things to know –
- It is terribly over rated and
- Only the first half is scary.
Directed by David Robert Mitchell, this is the story of Jay, who we first meet at the start of a blossoming romance with Hugh. They go on a date, have a nice night, have sex in his car.. and then it all goes wrong. He tells her he’s passed on to her the mother of all STD’s with a strange presence that will now ‘follow’ her everywhere she goes, it can take the form of anyone, and though it is slow moving it is relentless and will not give up until it catches and kills her, at which point it will return to the person it came from, in this case – Hugh.
He explains the only way to escape it is to have sex with someone else and pass it on.
The film is then about Jay and her friends trying to find a way to beat the ‘entity’.
With a cast of unknowns (Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi) and the bleached look of old school horrors, this movie is unique amongst the scary movies of today with their star casts, bold splashes of colour and extreme gore. In fact, I don’t remember much ‘gore’ at all though there is one scene of violence at the beginning that was fairly memorable. This is a movie that relies on atmosphere and that creepy factor of being followed to get its scares, which is all well and good when it works.
The acting is reasonably good across the board but the script feels somewhat lazy and trying too hard to be hipster, so the scares fall away as we get further into the story and what was an initially chilling idea becomes a tad farcical and stretched as the movie presses on towards a fairly anti-climactic finale. Its a movie that looks like ‘The Virgin Suicides’ but has none of the emotional pay-off, feels like old school horror but takes itself way too seriously; and the intent is muddled – is this a film about the dangers of casual sex? An allegory for sexually transmitted diseases? (no one discusses condom use here.. is that purposeful? Would it have prevented the ‘entity’ passing?)
I’m not sure if the film-makers had an ultimate goal in this film other than to creep you out but unfortunately this feels a little too much like a missed opportunity and an after-school special fom hell.
Sex is bad kids, m’kay!
6/10
theresalwaysacat 