Horror film that played at Sundance, Cannes & Toronto gets good reviews f/NYT & LAT.

[Vladimir Putin]

I know very little about this movie, when I checked my favorite news site, there was a caption that filmgoers complained that this movie is "too scary to watch." The movie is called "It Follows," about a teen girl who after a sexual encounter is followed by some strange phenomena that only she can see that threatens to kill her. Just opened in N.Y. and L.A. today, will open in more cities next week (Friday the 20th). The movie, which was filmed in the Detroit suburbs, got a lot of buzz at last year's Sundance, Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals.

New York Times: “'It Follows' abides by a principle that few horror movies have the courage to embrace: The unknown is the unknown. Clues to the source and motives of this menace are dropped, but they don’t add up. Like the evil in a David Lynch horror film, it is out there in the night, waiting to get you."

Los Angeles Times: "Could we be on the cusp of a new golden age of horror films? ... David Robert Mitchell's 'It Follows,' (a) smart, relentlessly chilling thriller that opts for originality over cheaply rejiggered jolts. ... Mitchell, ... delivers here a welcome breath of fresh scares."

[Vladimir Putin]

Opened in more cities today, some more reviews, some good, some so-so.

Boston Globe: ..."It Follows," which looks like a cheap horror movie but is considerably smarter, doesn't belabor the obvious. If anything, it's an unexpected morality play. ... Without overplaying it's hand, "It Follows" manages to be clever, literate and surprisingly generous to its characters. Best of all, it's really, really scary.

Washington Post: "It Follows" is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. It's also one of the most beautiful. ... If there are parts where the action slackens, they're never torpid or dull. The unease is always there, even if unseen.

Chicago Tribune: At the Cannes Film Festival last year, (Director David Robert) Mitchell's picture grabbed a lot of coverage ... I've seen "It Follows" twice, the second time to figure out why I didn't get a little more out of it the first time - and to understand why a movie operating on such a sharp premise feels slightly flat. ... Many people are crazy for this movie; check it out, just to see where you land - up, down or, as I did, in the middle.

San Francisco Chronicle: " ... the film never reaches terrifying heights. There are too many slow scenes of slackers slacking - and the fear factor goes on a few hiatuses too many.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The first three months of the year produce a lot of forgettable films. But every year there's a film that catches your attention and reminds you why you love sitting in dark theaters two hours twice a week.

Associated Press: ... a subversively unconventional horror film that plays with those ideas (such as letting someone in) in one of the more brilliant and stylish genre send-ups of recent years. ... While the moments of terror are thrilling, at times the movie seems to be more about the trauma of trusting the wrong person than anything else.

USA Today: Sexual promiscuity has long led to bad stuff happening in horror movies, especially in 1970s and 1980s slasher flicks and usually early on in the cinematic body count. ... No movie has done it as artfully as "It Follows." ... another example of how smart the indie horror game has become. It also gives sex-ed classes a frightfully good tool for encouraging their high school charges to keep their clothes on.

[giovanni_hotel]

I say it's all hype until the movie is in wide release and actual horror fans rate it.

An aside and not to hijack this thread, but being followed by a stranger with a menacing and unknown intent particularly at night is one of the scariest experiences in life.

Reflecting back on the Trayvon Martin case, it disturbs me how folks casually dismissed the terror Martin must have faced from George Zimmerman getting out of his car after cruising him for blocks and coming after him for no apparent reason.
IMO following someone at night without stating your intentions is a hostile act and how the person you're following reacts, outside deadly force, is warranted.

If the situation had been reversed and George Zimmerman shot Trayvon dead AFTER Trayvon had been following him for several blocks in a car, everyone in America would have called it justifiable homicide.

[Vladimir Putin]

I say it's all hype until the movie is in wide release and actual horror fans rate it.

An aside and not to hijack this thread, but being followed by a stranger with a menacing and unknown intent particularly at night is one of the scariest experiences in life.

After watching this film, I can now see why Sundance, Cannes and Toronto showed this film at their respective festivals. I disagree with the critics from the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The trailer didn't do the film justice. This film gave me the creeps. My nerves were unsettled throughout the movie waiting to see if those human-looking demons would show up wherever that girl went. Was asked to fill out a survey asking me how I heard about it and what I thought about it. I said I would not pay to see it again (which is typical of 99% of movies I see, the last film I paid to see more than once was "Titanic") but would pay to buy a Blu-ray copy when it comes out. The only cliche in this movie is that it is typical of slashers of the past where you have sex you're going to get in trouble but in this film it was done tastefully and it's really not a slasher, proof a movie doesn't need violence or gore to make it scary.



As for what words/phrases I would use to describe this film, I picked Different/Original, Thought provoking, Good dialogue, Smart, Exciting, Entertaining, Has a good story, Intense in a good way, Visually interesting, Creepy in a good way, Scary in a good way, Suspenseful and Well-acted.

[giovanni_hotel]

I didn't realize movie producers did that level of market research for a film AFTER its release.

[Vladimir Putin]

Yeah I thought that was pretty weird too.

This is from Rotten Tomatoes.

[Vladimir Putin]

I say it's all hype until the movie is in wide release and actual horror fans rate it.

"It Follows" is now getting a very wide release starting this Friday (March 27) all throughout the U.S.

This page lists all the U.S. cities and theaters: http://itfollowsfilm.com/screenings

How it's doing compared to other movies:

1.) “Insurgent”, one week, 3,875 theaters, $13,487 a theater, $52,263,700

2.) “Cinderella”, two weeks, 3,838 theaters, $9,087 a theater, $122,517,000

3.) “Run All Night”, two weeks, 3,171 theaters, $1,787 a theater, $19,639,200

4.) “The Gunman”, one week, 2,816 theaters, $1,786 a theater, $5,028,700

6.) “Do You Believe?, one week, 1,320 theaters, $2,721 a theater, $3,591,280

19.) “It Follows”, two weeks, 30 theaters, $11,496 a theater, $565,537

[irvin66]

I will only say one thing and that is that Vladimir Putin is a huge asshole!!!!!!
Скажу только одно, и это, что Владимир Путин огромный мудак!!