Chasing the Ethereal: It Follows and the Shadows of Abstract Horror
In a world where monsters wear no face, fear lingers like a curse passed from stranger to stranger.
David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) stands as a beacon in contemporary horror, merging a deceptively simple premise with layers of ambiguity that invite endless interpretation. This film does not merely scare; it haunts by blurring the line between the tangible and the abstract, positioning itself as both a narrative thriller and a cousin to the most experimental corners of the genre. By pitting its relentless entity against the traditions of abstract horror cinema, we uncover how It Follows refines dread into something profoundly modern, echoing yet surpassing the surreal terrors of its predecessors.
- It Follows transforms a sexually transmitted curse into a metaphor for inescapable trauma, contrasting with the pure formlessness of abstract horror classics like Carnival of Souls.
- Its meticulous cinematography and retro soundtrack elevate atmospheric tension, drawing parallels to Lynchian dreamscapes while grounding horror in suburban reality.
- The film’s legacy lies in its influence on slow-burn psychological terrors, proving abstract elements can drive commercial success without sacrificing depth.
The Curse That Walks: Dissecting the Narrative of It Follows
In the sun-drenched suburbs of Detroit, It Follows opens with a frantic escape. A young woman, Annie, speeds away from her family’s beach house in a haze of panic, only to meet a grim end on an abandoned road. The camera lingers on her terror-stricken face, her body twisted unnaturally after an unseen force claims her. This visceral prologue sets the stage for the central horror: an entity that assumes human form and pursues its victim at a walking pace, relentless and unhurried. Once passed on through sex, the curse transfers like a venereal disease of the soul, forcing the bearer to confront mortality in every stranger’s gait.
Enter Jay, played with quiet vulnerability by Maika Monroe, a college student enjoying a seemingly idyllic summer. After a date with Hugh turns intimate, she awakens paralysed in an abandoned building, watching as the shape-shifting It approaches. Hugh explains the rules: it only walks, but never stops; it can look like anyone; passing it on relieves the burden, but failure means death. Jay’s friends, a ragtag group including the bookish Paul (Keir Gilchrist), sceptical Yara (Olivia Luccardi), and loyal Kelly ( Lili Sepe), rally to help, leading to a series of escalating confrontations. They flee across empty pools, derelict factories, and vast lakes, each encounter heightening the paranoia as It manifests as grandparents, lovers, or masked figures.
The film’s power resides in its refusal to explain. No origin myth, no exorcism ritual, no final reveal. Instead, Mitchell crafts a mythology through implication, drawing on urban legends of slow-moving zombies or the slasher archetype but subverting them with existential weight. Jay’s arc evolves from denial to grim acceptance, her relationships fracturing under the curse’s shadow. Intimate moments, like the awkward passing of the entity between Jay and her friends, underscore themes of intimacy’s peril, transforming sex from liberation to liability in a post-AIDS cultural echo.
Production notes reveal Mitchell’s meticulous planning. Shot on 35mm Super 16 for a grainy, nostalgic haze, the film evokes 1970s and 1980s horror while feeling timeless. Rich Vreeland’s synth score, pulsing like a heartbeat under duress, amplifies the entity’s approach, turning silence into a weapon. Key scenes, such as the indoor pool shootout where It advances through gunfire and shattering glass, blend practical effects with choreographed chaos, making the invisible palpable.
Form Without Flesh: The Essence of Abstract Horror
Abstract horror thrives on evocation rather than exposition, prioritising mood, symbolism, and sensory assault over linear plots. Pioneered in avant-garde works like Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), it permeates genre cinema through films that prioritise the uncanny over the concrete. Think of Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962), where a woman’s spectral existence unfolds in ghoulish visions amid a decaying Kansas carnival, or E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten (1989), a wordless ritual of birth, decay, and cosmic violence captured in decayed Super 8 footage. These films reject narrative crutches, immersing viewers in dread’s raw texture.
David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006) exemplifies this evolution, weaving Hollywood satire with Polish folklore into a three-hour digital fever dream. Characters dissolve into rabbit-headed sitters and malfunctioning lights, mirroring psychological fragmentation. Similarly, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) weaponises internet loneliness through ghostly pixels bleeding into reality, its abstract ghosts less entities than metaphors for disconnection. What unites these is ambiguity as arsenal: horror emerges from what cannot be named, forcing audiences to project their fears onto voids.
In contrast to splatter or supernatural procedural, abstract horror demands active engagement. It builds worlds where logic frays, often through experimental cinematography, minimal dialogue, and sound design that assaults the subconscious. Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void (2009), with its neon-drenched psychedelic death trip, pushes this further, blending horror with transcendental vertigo. These films challenge viewers to feel terror intellectually and viscerally, paving the way for It Follows to hybridise their purity with accessible storytelling.
Ghosts in the Machine: Carnival of Souls and the Walking Dead
Carnival of Souls mirrors It Follows in its portrayal of inexorable pursuit by the otherworldly. Mary Henry’s car plunges off a bridge, only for her to emerge unscathed, wandering into a ghostly realm where pallid figures shamble towards her in silent judgment. Like It, these ghouls move deliberately, their presence announced by organ swells rather than screams. Both films exploit wide, empty spaces, turning beaches, highways, and abandoned pavilions into arenas of isolation.
Where Harvey’s low-budget aesthetic yields ethereal fog and stark black-and-white compositions, Mitchell updates the formula with colour-saturated suburbia, yet retains the same existential chill. Mary’s alienation stems from limbo’s denial; Jay’s from a curse democratising doom. Production parallels abound: both shot guerrilla-style on shoestring budgets, relying on location’s inherent unease. Carnival‘s influence lingers in It Follows‘ final lakeside standoff, evoking the carnival’s watery grave.
This kinship highlights abstract horror’s evolution. Harvey’s film predates the slasher era, proving slow menace predates gore. Mitchell nods overtly, casting the entity in forms echoing Mary’s ghouls, bridging mid-century minimalism with millennial malaise.
Decaying Visions: Begotten‘s Primal Abyss
E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten strips horror to its viscera, presenting a god-figure’s self-flagellation, birthing a son-prophet amid thorny wastes, all without dialogue or score. Grainy, overexposed footage renders flesh as putrid abstraction, violence symbolic of creation’s horror. It Follows tempers this extremity, imposing rules on chaos, yet shares the theme of bodily violation: the curse invades through intimacy, much as Merhige’s deity ruptures itself.
Visually, both revel in distortion. Begotten‘s handmade effects, scratching emulsion to simulate decay, find echo in It Follows‘ practical shapeshifters, achieved via stunt performers in varied costumes. The former assaults with unrelenting abrasion; the latter seduces with deceptive calm, building to cathartic bursts. Merhige’s influence permeates underground horror, and Mitchell, emerging from indie circuits, absorbs this rawness, refining it for wider palates.
Dream Logic Unleashed: Lynch’s Inland Empire Shadows
Lynch’s sprawling Inland Empire confronts us with fractured realities, where actress Nikki Grace slips into her role’s cursed psyche, pursued by Polish poltergeists and sitcom phantoms. The entity’s polymorphous disguises parallel It, both embodying fears personalised yet universal. Lynch’s digital murk, handheld frenzy, and non-sequiturs create paranoia akin to Jay’s hypervigilance, scanning crowds for threats.
Yet It Follows linearises Lynch’s maze, offering progression amid abstraction. Both exploit female protagonists’ vulnerability, exploring performance’s bleed into self. Mitchell’s symmetrical frames and slow zooms homage Lynch’s precision, turning domestic spaces uncanny.
Modern Hauntings: Lake Mungo and Found-Footage Phantoms
Australia’s Lake Mungo (2008) employs mockumentary to unravel grief’s illusions, revealing teen Alice’s secret life through spectral footage. Like It, the horror manifests casually, glimpsed in backgrounds, forcing reinterpretation of normalcy. Both films centre young women burdened by hidden sins, their pursuits subtle yet omnipresent.
Joel Anderson’s sound design, layering whispers over domestic hums, anticipates Vreeland’s synth pulses. Lake Mungo‘s emotional core grounds abstraction, much as It Follows humanises its curse through friendship’s fray.
Crafting the Intangible: Cinematography and Sound Design
Mitchell’s widescreen compositions trap characters in vast emptiness, foregrounding the entity’s plodding advance. Shallow focus isolates Jay amid oblivious crowds, echoing abstract horror’s alienation. Disasterpeace’s score, evoking John Carpenter’s analogue menace, layers minor keys with dissonance, making footsteps thunderous.
Compared to Pulse‘s static glitches or Lynch’s buzzing fluorescents, It Follows perfects auditory pursuit, silence as prelude to doom.
Effects in Restraint: Practical Magic Over CGI Spectacle
It Follows shuns digital fakery for tangible terror. The entity relies on doubles in everyday attire, enhanced by strategic cuts and prosthetic wounds. Underwater sequences, filmed in controlled tanks, convey drowning dread without VFX overload. This mirrors Begotten‘s artisanal gore and Carnival‘s matte paintings, prioritising suggestion.
In an era of Marvel excess, such restraint amplifies impact, proving abstraction thrives on implication. Production diaries note weeks perfecting walks, ensuring unnatural rhythm unnerves intuitively.
Echoes Endure: Legacy and Cultural Ripples
It Follows spawned imitators like The Endless (2017), blending cosmic abstraction with pursuit dread. Its metaphors, from STDs to mortality, fuel academic discourse, cementing its canon status. By wedding abstract purity to genre tropes, it expands horror’s boundaries, inviting future filmmakers to chase its unseen shadow.
Director in the Spotlight
David Robert Mitchell, born 20 October 1974 in Clawson, Michigan, grew up immersed in suburban Americana, a landscape that would define his filmmaking. A self-taught auteur, he studied film informally through voracious viewing of classics like Jaws and Halloween, blending nostalgia with unease. His feature debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010), a coming-of-age tale of nocturnal quests in Detroit’s empty streets, premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, earning praise for its dreamy lyricism and establishing his signature wide-angle gaze.
It Follows (2014) catapulted him to prominence, grossing over $23 million on a $2 million budget and securing cult status. Critics lauded its originality, with Mitchell drawing from personal fears of pursuit and adolescent anxiety. He followed with Under the Silver Lake (2018), a neo-noir fever dream starring Andrew Garfield as a paranoid slacker unraveling Hollywood conspiracies amid coyote howls and buried codes; it divided audiences but reinforced his command of mystery. Upcoming projects include a long-gestating sequel to It Follows, teased in cryptic interviews.
Mitchell’s influences span Carpenter, Argento, and Bava, evident in his synth scores and saturated palettes. He champions practical effects, shooting on film to capture texture, and often collaborates with composer Disasterpeace. Awards include Independent Spirit nods, and he mentors emerging directors through festivals. Residing in Los Angeles, Mitchell remains elusive, prioritising craft over celebrity.
Filmography highlights: The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010) – Lyrical teen odyssey; It Follows (2014) – Curse-driven horror benchmark; Under the Silver Lake (2018) – Surreal detective yarn; shorts like Virgin (2005) and Flash in the Pan (2002) showcase early experimental bent.
Actor in the Spotlight
Maika Monroe, born Dillon Monroe on 10 May 1993 in Santa Clarita, California, discovered acting after wakeboarding pursuits stalled by injury. Raised in Ventura, she honed skills in Australia before Hollywood beckons. Her breakout came in At Any Price (2012) opposite Dennis Quaid, but It Follows (2014) defined her as scream queen Jay, her poised terror blending fragility with ferocity.
Monroe’s career exploded with action-horror hybrids: The Guest (2014), a razor-sharp home invasion thriller with Dan Stevens; Green Room (2015), surviving neo-Nazi punks beside Patrick Stewart; Mojave (2015) with Oscar Isaac. She pivoted to sci-fi in Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) and Colony (2016-2018 TV), then voiced in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). Recent roles include Villains (2019) with Bill Skarsgård, Plain Clothes (2025) opposite Wagner Moura, showcasing dramatic range.
Awards elude her major nods, but festival acclaim abounds; she advocates mental health, drawing from roles’ intensity. Versatile across genres, Monroe excels in physicality, from Labour’s Leaps (2017 short) to Echo Valley (upcoming). Filmography: At Any Price (2012) – Farm family drama; The Fifth Wave (2016) – Alien invasion lead; I’m Not Here (2017) – Time-shifting family portrait; Alien: Romulus (2024) – Praised survival horror; TV: Too Old to Die Young (2019).
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