Throughout the month of October, I will be reviewing a different horror movie every week. To narrow down the selection, I decided to focus solely on what I’ve deemed contemporary horror classics, films that have come out within the last 10 years that have made a significant impact on the genre, have garnered cult classic status or critical acclaim and are unlike any other horror film released within the past decade.
Historically, good horror films have often been allegories for pressing societal issues. For example, take George A. Romero’s 1968 classic “Night of the Living Dead.” Critics have taken the film as a critique on ’60s American society, including racism and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. On the surface, it looked like a lot of blood and guts, but dig deeper and it’s easy to see there’s a method behind the madness.
Today, directors are still using horror films as vehicles to tackle relevant problems in our society. “It Follows,” David Robert Mitchell’s 2015 psychological horror masterpiece, expertly does this through a harrowing and anxiety-inducing film experience that comments on sex culture, coming-of-age and suburban life.
The film follows college student Jay (Maika Monroe), as she encounters a shape-shifting supernatural entity that is slowly walking toward her wherever she may be throughout the film. She contracted a virus after a sexual tryst with her new boyfriend who explains that It will always be following her until it kills her or she passes it on to someone else through sex.
The creature is never explained to the audience, but we do know it can take the form of a stranger or loved one, and can only ever walk. Throughout the film, Jay sees It in the form of her father, one of her friends, an old woman in a hospital gown and anything else physically possible. You can feel Jay’s paranoia, affecting the viewing experience as we become weary of appearances and constantly scan the screen for impending danger. And what’s scarier than always having something watching you?
The entity seems like something from a nightmare, contributing to the overall dream-like feel of the film. The pale color palette, absence of adult figures, timelessness of the setting and electro-organ score straight from a John Carpenter film all work to create an atmosphere seemingly out of a dream. We rarely see characters other than the main group of friends, and the abrupt change of setting feels unrealistic.
Given this, the film should not be as scary as it is, as we’re often able to separate dream from reality. But the film is still terrifying because of what it represents. Many critics have taken It to be an allegory for STDs —particularly HIV/AIDS — but I think that’s almost too easy of an interpretation.
Instead, it represents our sex culture — how women are often the target of shaming, sexual violence and double standards. Who we sleep with should not, literally or hypothetically, follow us for the rest of our lives, although it often does. This is especially true with the rise of social media and increased social comparison.
While that may be the most accessible conceit, the main metaphor tackles the anxiety of growing up and leaving our childhood behind us. From the start, there are symbols of youth and discussions of lost innocence. Jay’s paranoia and anxiety can be viewed as representative of the normal anxiety felt when adolescence is over and we’re thrown into real life. As much as we try to run from this, like the characters in the film, reality will eventually catch up to us.
In this, the film succeeds as both a horror movie and a coming-of-age film. Jay is not the same innocent girl she was at the beginning of the film, but she’s crossed a threshold into a different part of her life: one that will never really get easier, but one that she will have to learn to deal with.

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Courtesy of Mongrel Media

It Follows