Bloody Perfect: I Think We’re Alone Now
Isaura Barbé-Brown brings us the next post in her new monthly column, Bloody Perfect.
Nothing says summer like hooking up. Smaller clothes, glowing (sweating) skin, pheromones in the air and sex on the menu. It’s a horny cocktail that’s hard to ignore.
It Follows (2014) is made of such a cocktail, garnished with teenage hormones for the perfect summer* treat.
(*Technically, it’s set towards the end of the summer, but everyone still spends most of their time outside in shorts, so it counts.)
The film follows Jay (Maika Monroe) who can mostly be found hanging with her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and friends Yara and Paul (Olivia Luccardi and Keir Gilchrist), or going on dates with Hugh (Jake Wearey). On one such date, Hugh drives her to a secluded spot which ends with the couple getting it on for the first time in the backseat of his car. It’s all going so well, until during the car equivalent of pillow talk, Hugh suddenly holds a cloth with chloroform over her Jay’s until she passes out. She wakes to find herself strapped to a wheely chair in an abandoned car park, while a panicky Hugh explains that he has passed something on to her, and that something will start following her. It will only ever be walking, but it will never stop coming. He informs her that it can look like anyone and she needs to pass it on to someone else.
A traumatised Jay finds it hard to believe anything Hugh has said, but it doesn’t take long for her to realise that he was, unfortunately, telling the truth. Her still doubtful friends and hot neighbour Greg (Daniel Zovatto), try their best to help her evade and outsmart the thing that follows.
After a few near misses, they drive to Greg’s old family beach house to wait it out on the shore. Then… nothing really happens for a while. Greg leaves to do something and walks past Yara, who is heading towards the group. Still.. nothing happens. Until we see Yara floating past in an inflatable ring, meaning the Yara heading straight for Jay, is the thing. Jay has her back to it, and since she’s the only one who can see it, no one notices until Jay is grabbed by the hair and the friends have to fight of the invisible assailant.
When I saw this film in the cinema, there was an audible gasp from the audience when Yara drifts into shot. Never have so many people been horrified to see a girl in a floaty. We had to watch on as the wrong Yara plods slowly towards Jay. It Follows did for walking what The Conjuring (2013) did for clapping. To make it worse, because it looks like Yara, even if Jay did turn, would she realise soon enough what was happening? Hugh says at one point that he thinks sometimes it looks like someone you love just to hurt you, so not only is it determined, it’s also kind of a dick. This scene is an incredible use of horror panto, “it’s behind you” tactics and a perfectly executed scare where the audience are unable to warn the unwitting characters or prevent the approaching violence. A day at the beach descends into chaos and confirms what we thought; Jay can never be safe, until she passes it on. And even then...
Director David Robert Mitchell has said the idea for the film came from a recurring nightmare that something was slowly, relentlessly, coming for him. He wanted to make something that was impossible to escape, so passing it on isn’t enough, you need to pass it on to someone who will try and survive. If they get got, it comes right back to you. Thus, the supernatural STD was born and who better to be passing it around but bored, horny teens?
Appropriately, the film followed me on my walk home from the cinema and has been creeping up on me ever since. It serves as a reminder to do a regular head count of the people I’m with, to be suspicious of pedestrians, and to always always use protection. Happy humping.
Isaura Barbé-Brown is a Hackney born and based actress. She studied at AADA in New York and BADA in Oxford. She has written for The BFI, Black Ballad UK as well as The Final Girls/Bloody Women and been a guest on The Final Girls podcast and the Evolution of Horror podcast. She has done talks at the BFI for their Squad Goals event and during their Love season with the Bechdel Test Fest on race in romantic films. Isaura has also been on panels for BFI Future Film, The Watersprite Film Festival and The Norwich Film Festival. Her acting work covers theatre, film, tv and voiceover. She has also written for short film, TV and theatre as well as short stories and poetry. You can find Isaura on Twitter and Instagram.
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