Saleem’s Annual Horror Scene Gallery #4: It Follows

 Movie Title: 

It Follows (2014)

Movie Scene: 

Opening

Following up on my Halloween Season annual event where I share my favorite horror movie scenes up until Halloween night is another cinematic treat. Tonight’s choice is the modern supernatural horror homage to classic slasher cinema, It Follows.

Still to this very day, 2014's It Follows holds the award for having one of my top favorite openings to a horror movie for as long as I can remember. And the fact that it’s a modern horror film is pretty surprising to me personally considering that most of my favorites regarding anything within this genre tends to lean towards the the older classics (pre-90's). So let’s talk about this scene, shall we? Everything about this opening is utterly brilliant from the fantastic camera work methodically immersing the viewer into the middle of “the situation” right out of the gate, the spine tingling score by Disasterpeace enriching the moment with an escalating feel of dread and tension, the chilling tone of the empty feeling neighborhood’s late afternoon setting, and the head scratching mystery of the terror that's taking place. 

The fact that we're seeing this random girl running out of her house for dare life right in the middle of the street while strangely refusing the help of a concerned neighbor already captures the audience’s intrigue. We never visually see what she’s running from, but we can surmise is that it’s terrifying enough to have her running in heels looking into the same direction trying to avoid whatever it is in sheer panic. Even her trajectory is bizarre as she first runs out of her house, then into the middle of the road cautiously walking backwards, runs across the other side of the street, then hurries right back into the same house passing her father by who seems genuinely concerned as the camera never reveals any creature of killer of any sort. This puts us in the shoes of a spectator much like the neighbor who offered help to the girl wondering the same thing, “Is this girl okay? She sure doesn’t seem okay.”. 

Initially, her house seemed like the place containing whatever evil or dangerous thing is after her, and yet, she runs right back in and we never get to follow her inside. Instead, as the audience, we simply just wait outside witnessing her father calling out to her before he follows behind her inside the house. Is something up with the dad? Well, she wouldn’t have run right back in his direction and directly pass him if he was out to kill her or something right? So, what is it? There’s this gradual increase of speculation happening within the tension in just these first couple of minute. I also love the small missable detail of the police cars and sirens being seen and heard far off in the background almost as if telling her and the audience that her best chance of a rescue is currently out of her reach or perhaps instead foreshadowing something awful like a harbinger of death. We then see her finally run out of the house again, this time without her father following behind her, rushing into a car and driving off as the score becomes even more prominent amping up the tension of whatever is taking place.

We then transition to her inside of the car driving while her phone continuously rings to which she doesn’t answer it for some reason. Is it the father calling her out of concern? Did something happen inside their home? Is it a friend or someone else that she’s meeting up with for safety? Again, we have zero context of the situation. What we know is what we feel from the visual direction and the score. That feeling that something absolutely horrifying is after this girl or perhaps she just witnessed something traumatizing inside of her home that her father may or may not be oblivious to. Cut to her now sitting on a beach alone in the night with the only comforting source of light being the headlights of her car. As the score simmers down to just a menacing pounding bass (escalating the dread), she finally answers her phone and reveals that it’s indeed her father that was likely trying to reach her. The way that she responds to the call almost solidifies to the audience that it’s not her father that she’s running from as she repeatedly tells him that she loves him while apologizing about past issues that was of her own doing, but she does so in an emotionally broken up fashion.

The tone of her voice is one of someone who sounds like they recently made a crucial mistake that has lead to dire consequences or that they know for certain that their life is about to end (be it murder or suicide). The fact that it’s a young woman telling this to her parents while she sits on a dark beach alone adds an eerie yet emotionally crushing sense of tragedy despite us not knowing who she is or what her situation actually entails. The girl then looks up and we cut to the car shining its headlights on her, and due to the night time setting, the rear lights’ red hue covers the beach’s backdrop with a sinister atmosphere behind the car. Again in this moment, the girl is staring off at something that is grabbing her attention and terrifying her but we as the audience aren’t able to see what she sees making us feel bad for her state of mind. She is truly alone and we feel helpless for her. So not only is this creepy, but it’s also deeply disturbing and dramatically investing. This is a tricky blend of emotions that is challenging for any film to nail down in just its first few minutes.

Finally, we get this jarring cut presenting a shot of the girl’s corpse laying lifelessly on what is now a daytime setting of the beach in a brutally contorted manner intensifying the mystery component to what this unseen element actually is and what lead to this chase to begin with. Some of my favorite scenes in horror funny enough tends to be in the beginning where many movies in the genre (at least the older ones) take the time to make the reveal of the killer or monster a suspenseful rollercoaster ride of sorts. I think It Follows has one of the most effective ways of pulling this off taking full advantage of the medium of film (striking visuals and perfectly fitting music) to masterfully let the audience feel exactly what they need to in the moment.