It Follows/The Rezort

IT FOLLOWS

This has already become somewhat of a modern classic in the horror genre, but it was my first time watching. The opening as a girl runs from her house to the concern of her confused parents, only to die on a beach, is unsettling, especially as we never see what it is she keeps looking behind her to see. Also, while we come late into her story (like A Warning to the Curious), her first actions in the film are to run away from her loved ones so no one else gets hurt. Poor red shirt, she seemed nice. And now she’s been horrifically murdered.

The camera is as voyeuristic as the thing that follows. It lingers behind trees and in gardens, and on people, it tells the audience they are part of this.

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Spoilers follow!!!!

As a play on the idea of STD horror, It Follows is building on the ideas set forth by The Ring series. And it even follows a similar structure, right down to the

 

Last Spoiler Warning!!!





male best friend who dies because he doesn’t believe in the curse. (Of course in the original Ringu novels Ryuji is a complete ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤, but the role is significantly softened up for the films.)

The director borrows long shots followed by close ups directly out of John Carpenters playbook, you can tell this is a film helmed by someone who has studied horror history.

Anyhow our main character Jay’s boyfriend is a bit weird, always looking over his shoulder and wanting to leave places quickly, so she decides the best way to solve that is to have a shag. And it clearly was for him, as he skedaddles out of town ASAP, but not before pointing he’s passed on a sexually transmitted murder ghost, and good luck. Also, he just has chloroform in his car to take out people. That Hugh guy is probably murdered in his jail cell one day by stalker style murder ghosts.

Mind you, he is the guy who was stalked by a murder sex ghost and took time out to go to the cinema. He’s not the sharpest spoon in the drawer. (Although there is online debate about if the girl at the start was another victim of Hugh, so he went to the cinema thinking he was safe. So he’s a ¤¤¤¤wit either way. Although I’d like to point out that if that was the case, then how come Hugh sees the thing after he passes the curse on to Jay?)


Also, top marks for treating Hugh like some kind of horrific sex crime monster who hurt Jay, because that’s what he is. And in general, her male friends are a bit too quick on volunteering to be the one who gets to sleep with her to pass on the curse. Greg for example can’t wait to get it on with the slightly delirious girl in the hospital bed, c’mon man.

The revenant is clearly hurt by bullets, if not stopped. It makes up for this vulnerability with being properly creepy, especially in its old lady guise. It is also intelligent (it avoids traps) and likes to torment people. It blatantly waits until Jay leaves hospital so she can see what it does next.

And the freakishly tall man with no eyes? That’s a jump scare and a half. The moment the thing grabs Jay’s hair is certainly a jump scare for her friends!


There's a general unease to this film and the ending - it's the thing following them, it walks like it - suggests things aren't going to get any better for our duo.

If I get unease from a supernatural horror, having written the damn things, its clearly doing something very well.

Properly good horror film, this. It's going to be one of those ones remembered from this past decade in the future, like the 70s had Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hallowe'en, the 80s Friday the 13th and Elm Street, and the 90s Scream.

THE REZORT

“Every apocalypse deserves an afterparty.”

A zombie film after the zombie apocalypse has ended, and humanity (ok, more precise, humans) won. 2 million people died in the war, and through news channels, we quickly discover there’s one island left that has zombies on it, which doubles as a holiday resort.

Again, major spoilers follow, you have been warned.

Yes, society has rounded up the surviving zombies on an island so rich people can come and shoot them. Hence, the Rezort.

Which sounds like a terrible place to take someone deadly afraid of zombies, but hell, they do it anyway.

The opening night, as we see a bunch of rich yobs celebrating around a chained zombie, doesn’t really strike you with much sympathy about this world. Tied up zombies in an arcade shooting course is disturbing enough at the start, it makes you wonder who the actual monsters are here.

So yes, this is Jurassic Park with zombies, right down to someone sabotaging the fencing and letting the monsters loose.

Only it turns out the Rezort also has a front.

It’s the biggest refugee crisis charity in the world. And has been using repatriation as a cover for infecting refugees with the zombie virus, so they will always have a plentiful supply of zombies for rich Westerners to shoot dead.


This is a weak horror film which rushes all its important moments which is a terrible shame, as the idea behind it is such an angry one, it deserved to get a better hearing.