Vai Seguir-te

Duas décadas do meu género favorito num só prato. A música intensa e steadycam de rua dos inícios de Carpenter, puxadas para giallo psicadélico em lugares, trabalham aqui com uma dimensão misteriosa de horror escondido ao estilo de moderno The Ring - O Aviso enquanto mantém a lógica do enredo e um comportamento credível dos personagens. O horror é ainda transmitido através das relações sexuais de adolescentes bonitos, conduzidos por uma loura bonita e frágil, e não é um prazer, mas um sofrimento culpado. Acrescente-se a isso os locais sombrios de Detroit sem pessoas. Um deleite para os conhecedores do género, que poderia ter sido o seu acontecimento da década, se a brilhante fusão de direções históricas tivesse sido visionariamente coroada com o traçado duma nova direção. (20/04/2015)

(49th KVIFF) I’m very happy after the screening at KVIFF. Seeing a good horror movie on a big screen, in a theatre full of people who, considering the circumnstances (the late hour and the booze), behaved well and weren’t a nuisance is not something you see very often. Objectively, I could complain about it being somewhat repetitive, most of the film consists of either how they try to catch the scary spirit or of how they go from one place to another, but these complaints are very well compensated by a premise that is original and entertaining for the genre, the likeable characters (finally, teenage protagonists in a horror movie that aren’t dull chess pieces, but nice young people, and you don’t want anything bad happening to them) and how effective it is overall – the opening sequence already gave me chills, and that feeling repeated itself during the entire 100 minute run. But what’s most valuable is that most of those scenes take place during the day. The climax at the swimming pool and the scene on the beach are some of the moments I will remember at the end of this film year. I was expecting something dirtier given the theme, and more sexually explicit, but It Follows is very lame in this aspect. As the producer said, in some sense it is actually a “pretty” film – the sun shines, the music is nice and the characters love each other. Only that they are followed by a horrifying spirit. (08/07/2014)

The film follows its inspirations quite flamboyantly, but it's also not afraid to go its own way. Therefore, the only thing that really comes to mind is why the adults in the story are glossed over with such vigor and why we don't know more about the gentleman in the photo - in that case, it would have been a decent crawl at the end and not just a flowing breast-stroke. (14/08/2015)

A sympathetic horror hipster that works quite well as a "coming of age" story about uncertainty, but worse as a genre piece. The attack attempts by ghosts in make-up are stupid and bring the film down. Although Mitchell has a good sense for visuals, the design (Detroit again) works best when it comes to working with tension and space, but it's not particularly inventive (the scene on the wheelchair is explicitly amateurish). I value the effort to update and the overlap, but the result is only slightly above average. (25/07/2014)

The Christian fundamentalist right in the USA once again came up with a plan on how to strike a deadly blow to sin, and they realized that they should use more modern methods when addressing the young generation. So they paid David Mitchell and he crafted a script on how one's first sexual experience can unleash the worst demons and destroy those who wanted to have some fun and sin a little bit. It's definitely not clever or impressive to me. There are much better films in this genre, so why waste time with this? Overall impression: 25%. (23/04/2017)

A pretty original idea and a pleasantly unpleasant Carpenter-like atmosphere, but the shooting scenes and the like bring it down from my point of view. Surely characters who appear in a horror movie don't have to act stupid just because they appear in a horror movie, right? (30/04/2016)

Halloween for the XXI century. Unlike Carpenter’s masterpiece, Mitchell doesn’t bring anything particularly new or refreshing to the table, the power and effect of It Follows comes primarily from the way it returns to the prudent and old-fashioned representatives of the genre – there’s no need to create a cool killer and attack the viewer with exhibitions of style, it’s enough to highlight the most natural human needs, making you nervous with the sensation that your space will be breached by an indomitable, mysterious intruder. A very well cast and very beautiful Maika Monroe, a great retro music score and lots of creative awareness, all producing an attractive film space without any concrete period definitions (the cars speak of the 80s while the clothes and the design of the houses are almost identical to the present), without deviating formally from the “slasher” plane towards broader intellectual lines, which the premise smartly attacks. I would have liked a tighter ending, but it does keep its coherence and ambiguity. 85% and the fifth star is because no other horror movie from the entire decade deserves it more. (21/03/2020)

An old-school picture. It works on so many aspects (characters, dialogues, music, building-up of suspense and fear) newer horror films often fail to properly handle. How could I not appreciate this flick? A pity the creators haven’t played a bit more with the pursuers’ look, but apart from that, I’m delighted with all the rest. Interestingly, D. R. Mitchell managed to create this wonderful horror film without any jump scare – and with a brilliantly built-up atmosphere! [KVIFF 2014] (19/06/2018)

O tema do filme é imaginativo e original (e, ao mesmo tempo, simples). Gosto de como o realizador decidiu não seguir o caminho da carnificina sangrenta ou dos sustos irritantes, e em vez disso fez um filme de terror no sentido tradicional que é assustador por causa da atmosfera e das tomadas em câmara lenta de um personagem que se aproxima. Mas poderia ter sido ainda mais assustador e melhor-feito se tivesse sido pelo menos um pouco inteligente! Os personagens do filme agem como idiotas e as suas tentativas de matar o inimigo são ridículas (o que pretendem alcançar na cena da piscina?) e pergunto-me o que aconteceria se fossem para outro continente. A premissa do filme é excelente e excecionalmente assustadora, mas um horror excecionalmente bom não garante. (08/07/2014)

I wasn't that impressed with It Follows, but I still think it's at least an average horror film. I think it would have been better if it had been shortened a bit because not much happens in the hundred minutes that it couldn't have been cut by twenty minutes. Moreover, I think that in such a case the atmosphere could be even more oppressive. (22/07/2016)

Brilliant minimalism. How sumptuous a genre horror film can look when it sets two simple rules that it sticks to dutifully from start to finish! David Robert Mitchell has won my great fondness, mainly because he has managed to make one hell of a genre entry for two million using a specific retro-analog atmosphere and a homogenous script. And that the soundtrack is very reminiscent of Carpenter's classics or Argento's giallo pieces is probably no coincidence. (06/03/2020)