It Follows

Wow, I just got off of a very entertaining thrill ride called It Follows, a film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, and I gotta tell ya, I haven't had a modern Horror film hit me like this in a very long time. It's well-shot, amazingly scored and features a cast of characters played by actors who are not only good at what they do, but look like ordinary people and not like the standard cheerleader and jock types we're used to seeing in these kinds of movies.

Another refresher is that we don't focus on the standard dumb teenager/young adult, and instead focus on fairly level-headed (or as close to level-headed as any of us were in our earliest 20's anyway) individuals who are forced to deal with a situation I don't even want to imagine myself in. This isn't a movie where you're going to see dumb kids making the same dumb mistakes we've seen a thousand times, but instead they make their own mistakes, due in part to their lack of familiarity with the creature they're dealing with. In a way it's a sort of allegory, with the lead girl being a fresh college student and feeling her way through adulthood, where every decision you make seems like the wrong one, no matter what you do.

I'll try to avoid spoilers here, but I will be touching on a scene here or there to cast some light of the various themes that can be pulled from the movie, so a minor spoiler or two is possible. So, with that in mind, read on at your own risk.

The movie starts with a girl running out of her house, frantic as her dad calls back from the house, asking if she's alright. Meanwhile, we notice her eyes focused on something in the direction of the camera. Something that the lady on the street next to her doesn't seem to notice. She runs back into the house, then runs back out a few seconds later with her keys, then hops in her car and drives away. Next, it's after dark and we see her sitting on a beach alone and her phone rings (it's interesting to note that this use of the cell phone is something you won't really see again) and she apologizes to her dad for being a bad daughter sometimes, and it becomes apparent that she's saying goodbye, having accepted her fate.

Skipping ahead, we meet our lead, Jay, played by Maika Monroe. She's swimming in the pool in her backyard without a care, minus the two neighborhood kids peeking in on her over the fence, but she doesn't even let that bother her, telling them with a smile that she sees them. Shortly after she's on a date with her new boyfriend, Hugh, played by Jake Weary, and everything is going pretty well. Watching this scene reminded me of how awkward first dates were when I was young. Even the best of first dates tend to have those awkward moments you can't get around when really getting to know someone for the first time. Very quickly though, once they get into the theater and sit down, ready to watch their movie, things take a turn. Hugh points out a girl in a yellow dress that Jay says she can't see. Hugh starts to panic and says they need to leave. Jay questions him about it outside, but he's deflective and won't tell her. To be concise, they do end up having a second date, where they have sex ... and then Hugh uses a chloroform rag to knock her out.

Now, here's where the meat of the story and the root for all of the movie's symbolism begins. Jay wakes up tied to a chair, scared and confused as Hugh talks to her and begins to tell her what he's done. There's this thing; it doesn't have a name, and he only knows it as, well, "It." He tells her that It will begin to follow her now, always at a walking pace and It can look like anyone. He warns her against going anywhere that only has one exit, because "It's slow, but It's not stupid." Then, after making sure she sees It and is convinced it's real, he pulls her away to his car and drives off, after suggesting that she has sex with someone else to pass it on. Apparently once it's passed on, It follows that person until they pass on the curse or It kills them. And after It kills someone, the last person in the chain is the next target. Oh, and only those touched by the curse can see It, and that's what makes It so terrifying.

The message(s) that this film tackles ... well, it doesn't shy away from anything. There are so many interpretations that can be gleaned from this movie it can make your head spin. It's the kind of thing you can watch with two other people and each of you can pull different meanings out of it, and none of them are any more right or wrong than the others. I wish I'd been able to watch it with a group the first time to see what my friends pulled from it, but I definitely plan to do that later. This movie has the kind of heart that Wes Craven's work is known for, and I applaud it for going the direction it went. Not to mention that Jay is, in my opinion, the best female lead in a Horror film since Nancy Callahan in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Yeah, I went there.

The last things I'm going to talk about are the period of the film, and the soundtrack. As far as the period goes, the director did a great job maintaining ambiguity. We see a cell phone or two, but the decor in the houses we see look very 80's or early 90's, which puts it somewhere between a nostalgia trip and our modern reality. It walks that line very well, and nothing ever feels out of place. Now, the soundtrack ... WOW. The composer is someone you may recognize if you've played the video game Fez, Disasterpiece. I already thought his work was good, but this film convinced me he's about a league past brilliant. Pulling a lot from John Carpenter's work, he weaves together a score that not only sends chills up your spine when it needs to, but conveys an almost dreamlike confusion at other times. I don't think I've ever been more impressed by the music in a Horror movie, ever.

I could go on, diving into the themes of the movie, talking about what Paul's relationship with Jay represents and maybe touch on the themes of sexuality throughout the movie, but instead I think I'll let you find that out for yourself. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie, preferably with a group, and really think about it. You won't regret it. I hope I've convinced you to give it a shot.

A Slave To Interpretation

I came across an interesting article tonight (well, technically it's morning) where a columnist was listing their 10 (from best to worst) Stephen King movie adaptations. I saw before I clicked over to the main article that The Shining was listed at #1, and immediately thought "Well, surely they're talking about the miniseries SK did in '97", but I was wrong. For some reason I couldn't fathom, they had not only put the Kubrick movie on the list, but at #1, above every other adaptation.

So, after reading the entire list, I went back to the top and re-read the description, which I'll just quote here:

"Stephen King famously hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. His major grievance with the Kubrick film is his feeling that the director downplayed the supernatural element of the story as much as possible and emphasized the psychological origins of main character Jack Torrance’s madness. He also suggested, probably correctly, that casting Jack Nicholson in the role would diminish the effect of an otherwise normal man descending into derangement, as Nicholson had mostly played unstable characters up to that point. However, I think what is so powerful about The Shining is its open-endedness and the idea that we may never know exactly where our demons are coming from. It would be easy enough to blame Torrance’s meltdown on some external evil entity but the film is much more compelling because that is not made explicit. All of this aside, Kubrick is a visual master and a director whose vast attention to detail and style give this film its unique and stunning look. This is my number one Stephen King adaptation because it transcends King himself and is not only one of the best thrillers ever made, but one of the best films ever made"

Well, that's....

I'm sorry, but doesn't "best adaptation" imply that it's the most faithful to the source material? Am I missing something here?

The main part of that whole spiel that bothers me is the last line: "...because it transcends King himself and is not only one of the best thrillers ever made, but one of the best films ever made." So, in a roundabout way, it seems like the writer of this article is implying that King's beefs with the so-called adaptation are unfounded, which is wrong, in my opinion.

Anyway, after re-reading the description a second time, I decided to hit the comments and see what other people were saying about it, and the first couple of comments gave me hope, with people saying thinks like:

"Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies of all time so it should be number 1 without a doubt. Kubrick’s self indulgent butchering of the story in The Shining should make it a choice on the worst list."

"The Shining was one of King's best novels. The movie was outstandingly bad and I can't believe anyone who rates the movie highly even read the book. Stanley Kubrick is/was one of the world's most over-rated directors. The television mini-series version of "The Shining" was a vast improvement over the cinematic version."

"The Shining #1????? That was the most pathetic adaptation of a Stephen King book on record! Shawshank Redemption should have been #1 with The Mist a lot higher than it was ranked. The rest of the list is pretty well spot on."

But then I read further down and found comments like:

"" This is my number one Stephen King adaptation because it transcends King himself and is not only one of the best thrillers ever made, but one of the best films ever made." Agreed. Stephen King is my hero but I do agree that the movie was done well. It wasn't what he envisioned, but obviously it resonated with readers, and they have the book (as well as his own Shining movie series) for his idea. Besides, a major part of writing is begin interpreted in endless ways." 


And there were a few others who agreed with this person which, as a writer, really bothered me.

Now, I don't claim to know everything about writing (which is part of the excitement that keeps me going) and I can't speak for every writer, but there are certain ways I NEVER want my work to be interpreted. If I feel it's a complete bastardization of the work I lovingly cultivated over months or years, then I have every right to fight against it, in my mind. The idea of a novel "transcending" the writer in a way the writer is vehemently against is something that should never happen, and yet it happens everyday.

Exhibit A: Alan Moore

Moore has been very outspoken over the years about not wanting his work, saying, "They were written to be impossible to reproduce in terms of cinema. So why not leave them as a comic, in they way they were intended to be?"

Initially, Moore was content to just take the money for the film and keep his mouth shut, then he stopped taking any royalties at all and insisted that his name be stricken from the titles. And I can see why after so many of his stories were outright ruined by Hollywood, even before Watchmen. For some reason, even with Moore's constant protests, studios continue to gain access to movie rights due to his publishers' moneygrubbing.
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Now, I consider it different when a writer is closely involved with the filming process, like O'Barr was on The Crow. This was an instance where the writer personally signed off on everything the director wanted, and was pleased with the final product. In cases like this, if the writer has any complaints after filming, it's really their own fault.

Anyway,  I guess the main thing that irked me about the article was the fact that people (most of whom didn't even seem to have read the book) were running to the defense of a pitifully-done adaptation of a great work. If the movie had been called anything other than The Shining, I probably wouldn't have any problems with it, in all honesty, but when you use the name, you're making certain promises to the viewer, and I felt that those promises were broken by Kubrick.

If you'd like to check out the article for yourself, I'm leaving a link below, so feel free to check it out. And if you get a chance, please comment and give me your opinions on this. Should a writer always be a slave to unwanted interpretation?

Stephen King's Books Turned to Films, From Best to Worst