If there’s anything that is more subjective than comedy, it is horror.
Subjectivity is the critical man’s kryptonite, so talking about what can get
under people’s skin like I know anything for absolute certain is rather stupid.
That said though, and as much as I like to believe otherwise, the current trend
in horror films that leans more towards ‘music video horror’ has an audience
and I can see why. I know full well that not every moviegoer thinks as intently
about what they watch as I do, and that is very much a good thing, and scares generated from smash cuts and sudden loud
noises in the soundtrack may not be that substantial but they still work at
getting the heart racing. There is as much a place for this breed of film that
focuses primarily on editing and soundtrack (hence the term ‘music video
horror’) as there is for films that creep a little further under the skin; I
just wish that one didn’t far outweigh the other in today’s market. So, with
the current prevalence of junk food scares, does today’s subject add to their
ranks?
The plot: After having sex with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary), Jay (Maika Monroe) is told that she has been cursed. An unknown being that can make itself look like anyone follows those who are cursed, and the person dies if they are caught. The only way that she can save herself is if she passes it on to someone else by having sex with them. With the help of her friends, she explores every possibility she can to rid herself of the curse, but she can’t be sure of who she can trust.
One look at the plot, not to mention the poster complete
with backseat banging, and this doesn’t look too good; so much so that even the
director realised how bad this initially sounded. Don’t get me wrong, the
concept of a shape-shifting killer coming after you no matter where you are is a
genuinely scary idea but the emphasis on sex is pretty disheartening. However,
as the film carries on, this starts to make further and further sense. Not to
say that it starts out on its best foot, as while the scene where Jay is told
about the curse is well-shot and acted, the basics of what is happening on
screen is rather silly. But as the film carries on, with its numerous and quite
deliberately placed shots of couples in varying stages of connection, from
flirting to full-on boning, it start clicking into place. Even during the early
eras of horror, sexuality has been a big part of the genre’s mythos; look no
further than the classic trope of the virgin who survives to the end.
The idea of this kind of forced sexual liberation, of needing to get laid in order to save your own skin, feels like the furthest natural progression from the days when it seemed like Jason Voorhees could smell people having sex with how often it was happening around him. It uses a chicken-and-the-egg approach to the idea that, in even more recent scare fare, the presence of someone/something that will kill them for some reason gets people really horny in films like this. Hell, there’s even a line that addresses the stud/whore double standard in relation to sex in these kinds of horror movies, which earns major points in these parts. There’s also the STD parallels to be drawn here with the way It’s curse is spread, kind of like a porno spoof of The Ring (which, oddly enough, they wouldn’t even need to change the title for), but given how widely-discussed that POV is already, I can be forgiven for leaving that horse where it lies.
The idea of this kind of forced sexual liberation, of needing to get laid in order to save your own skin, feels like the furthest natural progression from the days when it seemed like Jason Voorhees could smell people having sex with how often it was happening around him. It uses a chicken-and-the-egg approach to the idea that, in even more recent scare fare, the presence of someone/something that will kill them for some reason gets people really horny in films like this. Hell, there’s even a line that addresses the stud/whore double standard in relation to sex in these kinds of horror movies, which earns major points in these parts. There’s also the STD parallels to be drawn here with the way It’s curse is spread, kind of like a porno spoof of The Ring (which, oddly enough, they wouldn’t even need to change the title for), but given how widely-discussed that POV is already, I can be forgiven for leaving that horse where it lies.
Of course, good ideas mean nothing if they aren’t met with
equally good execution. Let’s start with the titular 'It'. Now, at first, the
fact that it moves as slowly as it does will raise a few eyebrows as, you know,
you could just run the hell away from the thing. But David Robert Mitchell takes
this very nightmare-influenced idea and twists it to give it a surprising
amount of believability, not limited to having it appear out of nowhere and
even out of people’s eye-line, creating some very tense moments. This does end
up bringing up some plot holes, like why doesn’t it go after them while they
sleep or just appear two feet away from them in the same room, but that isn’t
quite enough to take away from the fact, despite how slow and stilted the
creature may be, it is still quite terrifying. It’s like a thought experiment
of trying to resurrect the old-school slow moving zombies and still make them
intimidating when there’s only one of them, and for the most part it works.
Couple that with a decent indie cast, and you’ve got yourself a very good baseline
for a tense horror film. I say 'indie cast' not just because it’s comprised of
mostly unknowns and up-and-comers, but also because they have the kind of
acting that only seems to find itself in lesser known film festival-type
productions, with long monologues to show some level of profundity. Unlike so
many other occasions where I’ve seen this, this doesn’t come across as
pretentious horse hockey; in fact, it actually ends up culminating in easily
the most satisfying conclusion of any film I’ve seen in a long while, horror or
otherwise.
So, with all that in the woodwork, how are the actual
scares? Well, while we do have a handful of jump scares that are ever-so
telegraphed, the film mostly hones in on the atmosphere of its core concept:
You are being chased by a creature that make itself look like your closest
friend, and you might never know who it is until it’s too late. The tension is
built much like the creature’s movements, in that it takes its time to build
and build until setting off one of several powder kegs to latch onto the
audience. The soundtrack, courtesy of Fez composer Disasterpeace, may get
deafeningly loud at times and sound like he’s trying to make the infamous Hans
Zimmer horn blast from Inception sound scary, but it weirdly fits in with the
unnerving and alienating feel of the film. Of course, said alienating tone can
sometimes inspire occasional moments of uncomfortable giggling, like when It
appears on a rooftop as a naked guy, but it nudges the line of mindfrag just
enough for me to give it a pass. Then there’s the scene where Jay and her
friends finally take action and actively fight against It, which takes a major
step up from the rest of the film in terms of production quality: The camera
work, the lighting, right down to the chilling conclusion, this kind of damn
effective filmmaking should be shown in Scares On A Budget 101.
All in all, this is one of those indie successes that
genuinely deserves its hype. Never mind that it’s a horror film that makes an
effort to be original in today’s day and age while commenting on the tropes of
the genre in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s retreading a lot of revisionist
horror that has come in recent years. Never mind that it has the kind of
writing that is a god-send for people like me who love to deconstruct the
themes present to create a more complete experience. Never mind that, despite
its relatively low budget, the only real evidence of a tight wallet production
wise is the infrequent showing of public domain films superimposed onto a
weirdly anachronistic TV. At the end of the day, this is a film that manages to
create proper scares without leaning on music video horror too much and does so
without resorting to the more egregious parts of the genre like the easily
unlikable cast and actually closes on a satisfying note; do I even need to say
that this is recommended?
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