It Follows (2015)

The horror underground has been buzzing about this film lately, and for good reason – it's fucking awesome. It Follows is a horror movie that does away with modern traditions like annoying flies on the back of its hand and instead hearkens back to the style of horror found in the 70s and 80s. With a story about a sort of possession that “follows” you once you have sex with a person that has it already, this is probably the most hyped movie in its genre in a while. I'm going to attempt to do this review with no spoilers – wish me luck!

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Daniel Zovatto

IMDb

Set to an ominous, low-fi electronic soundtrack, the film opens with a creepy, subtly-building kill scene that's as bloody as it is artistic. We get introduced to main character Jay, a normal 20-something college girl who goes out on a date with a guy she's been seeing. The events start off innocuous but slightly creepy, tinged with it like a slab of slightly blackened meat. There's enough tension here and it's played out excellently so that you never really know when it's going to explode and deliver a Really Scary Moment (TM) – and when it does, it's not quite what you expect; being just a little bit off kilter.

Even in its most predictable moments, which are few, the scares are delivered with a sort of tongue-in-cheek irony that knows it's at least a bit silly – this isn't a movie that revels in overly serious exposition or one that doesn't know when to laugh at itself. And the jump scare sounds are booming and loud – I mean, these jump scares are legitimately good; much better than some movies that just throw them anywhere. These ones are actually scary and not just used as cheap devices – they're done at moments that are really tense or funny enough that you're laughing along with the film.

I mentioned exposition, and the film really, really does THAT so much better than any other ones out there right now – a lot of movies will just shove in awkward exposition scenes because they have no other way to explain the supernatural stuff going on. This one has a really strange and out there plot, but the writing is talented enough to explain it and make those explanation scenes entertaining – one of them is heart-stoppingly set in the most jarring, bizarre scene in the film. The other major one has plenty of humor. You have to make the scenes where you're explaining the plot entertaining on their own – otherwise they're just meaningless info dumps, and it sucks ass.

The characters are fun. The dialogue is witty and lighthearted and makes you feel like you're just part of their weird little suburban white kid group, and they all have distinct personalities. There's a bit of romance here and there and the backgrounds between these characters is developed slowly, in a way that makes you want to know more. It's really quite well done and some of the best characters I've seen in a horror film lately.

The settings are really nice, with a lot of great cinematography that really sucks you in, and really artistic lighting that enhances the subtly bizarre mood going on. Great stuff.

And yeah, there's some vagueness and ambiguity to the plot, and the rules of the monster don't quite make sense 100% of the time – there's some inconsistencies and moments where it only seems to appear when most convenient for the characters, like really, it didn't try to get her when she was in a hospital bed for days? How considerate of it. But that stuff shouldn't make or break a movie with this much atmosphere and well-written scares in it. A plot that makes sense 100% of the time isn't always a 100% perfect movie; that's what some people don't get when discussing horror flicks. You complain about the “rules” of a movie like this, maybe you should go watch a documentary instead.

The scenes of the creepy thing just walking up from the distance to get her, over and over throughout the film, are just so good, and so scary. They're masterfully built up and strike a perfect balance between being subtle and overt – very cleverly, deftly written for a horror film, perfect for the style. 

This is a movie you will be scared shitless of and also have a blast watching. It's retro but not imitative of any one movie. The writing is ingenious and the characters are quirky and relatable. The scares are incredibly well done. Along with Absentia and The Babadook, this is one of the first great horror movies of this decade. Go see it if you can.

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Review: Exam (2010)

Director: Stuart Hazeldine

Starring: Adar Beck, Gemma Chan

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1258197/

"The test is simple in comparison, yet it will determine who leaves this room with a contract of employment, and who leaves with bus fair home."

Movies are a consumer’s commodity, with a lot of them being mass produced and tailored to fit the expectations of a group of people determined to be ‘the masses.’ That doesn’t mean they’re bad. I don’t want to come off as one of those pretentious snobs always looking down on whatever’s ‘mainstream’ as some kind of lower art form. There are plenty of mainstream films that are just as good as underground ones, but there’s also a certain joy in finding a film from a director I don’t know, with actors I’ve never heard of, and having it be completely awesome and blow me away. Hence…Exam.

This is just a treat. It’s a taut, mind-bending thriller set only in one room – you never see outside the small, dark room the 8 characters are placed in. The basic plot is that there are a group of people put in a room and asked to answer one question, or else they won't get the prestigious job they're applying for. Now, it's never stated what the job is, and only flashes are given of what's happening outside the room (some kind of futuristic society where a huge viral pandemic has happened). They’re given pieces of paper, but the papers are all blank. So what the heck is the question? That’s what they have to figure out.

The setting of Exam. A dark room where no-one enters and no-one leaves until the time is up...or unless they accidentally slip up.

The characters aren’t even given names. In a somewhat humorously racist twist, the black guy is called Black, the Arab guy Brown, and so on – they’re just called by nicknames regarding their physical attributes. These characters are constantly locked in a battle of wills. Like Cube and other similar films, you get the one guy that’s really standoffish who acts like a dick the entire time, and you get the level-headed characters who want to look at everything logically, and the one who is just plain odd and out of touch with reality. But where Exam succeeds is exactly how well it pulls off these clichés, as I found myself completely immersed in these characters.

Throughout the film you’re barely given any clues on what the hell is going on outside the room, what the job is or what the exam is actually about. It’s all left in the dark, and you are guessing most of the plot along with the characters. Little slivers of background information are expertly placed in between the tension, and they add a lot of flavor to the movie. The focus isn’t even really on any background information – just on the dramatic tension between the characters as they try to find out what exactly the answer to their puzzle is. They get more and more desperate over time and things really, really get out of hand.

The psychological tension continuously builds throughout the film.

And that’s why this is such a good movie. These characters really go nuts – I mean they really go at each other, and things get a lot more intense than I expected. I won’t spoil too much, as I really think everyone should go see this film for themselves, but the whole tension is captivating and the final twist is good. Exam succeeds with strong writing, a natural vigor and a staunch devotion to the thriller genre that is admirable from the point of such an underground picture. You don’t know any of the actors in this film, but if the world has any justice, you will see them, as well as the director and writer of this film, again soon.