In with the Old and Out with the New: Afternoon at the Movies

It Follows: ****

Unfriended: **½

It was an interesting trip to the movies this afternoon for a little horror excursion which had one film that took us back to the 80s where you saw telephones on the wall with an actual receiver and old box televisions with an antennae sticking out, while another firmly planted us in the modern era of “imessage”, Skype, Youtube, Facebook, and Google. It was quite a contrast, I tell you.

It Follows was such a welcome sight for this horror fan. I loved, loved, loved the aesthetic on display here where the camera often rotates from right to left and vice versa so glacially and methodically I did believe I was watching something a lot different than the norm of today’s filmmaking. The score was a wow for this ole boy. I was sure jiving to its panic beats and building of dread. Good stuff.

Unfriended fits in perfectly with the age we live in and cognitively presents how today’s youth communicate with the advances in the way people contact each other and peruse the internet for information quickly. Whether or not you can handle this in a form that tells a story regarding a possession of a group of suburban high schoolers responsible for the cyber-bullying that led to a teenager’s suicide during a single night after getting on to chat will be up to each viewer. I have the kind of computer-related job that requires extensive multi-tasking so it wasn’t as difficult for me to follow as it might be for some just not interested in doing so for 80 minutes. The kids on screen are also not exactly the most preferable hang-out buddies, although Blair *seems* to be until the “vengeful internet spirit” of a girl named Laura Burns starts using the internet and technology to draw out secrets each member of this select group harbors from one another.

It Follows has been described as a “throwback” and “old fashioned”, so if that makes you cringe, you might want to look at the new Poltergeist remake for your cheap Hollywood thrills that utilize today’s modern tools to give you a quick jolt or two through the loud bang. It Follows, to some, comments on the AIDs epidemic as the “It” which follows after the film’s heroine, after her sexual encounter with a guy she likes (this isn’t one of those “I saved myself for my high school boyfriend/girlfriend” kind of encounters) produces a supernatural presence that (if it catches up with you) kills you. The film spends a lot of its time allowing us to experience how the fear of the unknown (death as it comes after you) mortifies and consumes the heroine while her loyal friends are right there for her through thick and thin.

It amused me to watch It Follows and then follow this up with Unfriended because the friends in both films couldn’t be more different. While the heroine is often on the run and truly terrified, with reliable friends who help to protect and support her during a time of crisis she seems unable to circumvent no matter where she goes, the youths in Unfriended turn on each other when confronted by death in the form of someone they once knew “fondly”. There’s ultimately no loyalty among them, and as the secrets are revealed we see an open wound gushing profusely.

 Blair seems to be “innocent” (I use this loosely since she sex chats video-style with her current flame before she attempts to “sign off”) in comparison to her peers yet by the end she’s more guilty than all of them combined because it is her who proves to be the undoing of them all, a catalyst in all that happens once Laura “joins in” on the fun with the “skype bunch” during the evening of terror that befalls them. Unfriended opens with the gunshot to a face which is recorded and planted on a site which warns those wanting to watch (which included, funnily enough, Blair, her best friend, watching it at the start) of what awaits. This leads to the flirting of Blair and Mitch, her squeeze, and then comes Jesse, a reputed bad girl, a prick named Adam quite full of himself, Ken a portly “smoker” (he takes hits off a bong and e-cig during his time on Skype) who services as the film’s token obnoxious, overweight buffoon, and Val, a girl similar to Laura in looks, but with a loud, assertive tone to her that polarizes (no one in the group really likes her, and their view of her before talking with her is rather unsavory) hoping to spoil their flirty sex back-and-forth. They’re not exactly the most sympathetic bunch, and I found myself laughing as “suicides” took hold of them when Laura felt the need to have them kill themselves (the use of a blender, curling iron, gun, and knife are tools for Laura to have her victims destroy themselves)…not sure that was supposed to be the response, but bullying has been a hot topic as of late, and the use of the internet has been a weapon used against people during their most unflattering moments.

It Follows, however, has a rather surprising knack for allowing its cast to be far more admirable, fleshed out, individual, and worth investing in…a direct opposite of Unfriended. I cared about poor Jay, as she endures this long nightmare of flee and rest, flee and rest. It was genuinely tiring to see her stay just ahead but always confronted by “It” when she relaxes a bit. I felt the “It” which takes various forms of those the victim knows and/or happened to be victims themselves. Some take the form of a father and friend, but other times an elderly woman or man, a teenager we see found dead in horrible fashion on a beach not long after calling her dad to tell him she loves him. I love two particular scenes where Jay is in a classroom when  she first catches the elderly woman who follows her into the halls of the school before getting away, and another where this tall spectre enters her room right behind a gangly, innocuous friend named Paul checks to see she is okay.

The camera, location work, and music significantly lend an artistic credibility to It Follows as does the wardrobe which doesn’t quite “date” the film nor does it necessarily imply a direct link to a certain decade. But to see items from my days as a kid, homes lived in by the principles that aren’t typical examples of affluence but instead quite working-class. The wardrobe for those we follow are piecemeal and organized in a fashion that would never be wore by those kids in Unfriended. If anything friends of Jay (and Jay herself) would most certainly be objects of cruelty for the tech savvy party group. My wife herself says Jay’s undergarments were “granny panties”. My wife was quite critical of the back yard swimming pool Jay floats around in while keeping to herself and her thoughts. It is typical of those pools which stand up on yards and gather tree bits and insects. It wouldn’t be the kind of pool the kids in Unfriended would swim in…most certainly; I think the pool would be cleaned regularly by hired help and be built underground.

It Follows is both free from confinement and yet claustrophobic in its trap for Jay while Unfriended places a specific kind of ball and chain to its gang. Jay and her peeps try methods to keep the killer at bay while Blair and her so-called friends find that if they leave their computers, death awaits. Laura has them play a game which has them holding up all five fingers, forcing them to admit to their various transgressions against each other. It Follows has its “curse” spread through sex, with Jay experiencing a harrowing event after having it with a guy who purposely provokes what happens to her just so she knows what “it” is and should do to remain alive. Both films explore impending doom and defying it as long as possible, often unable to escape its inevitability.

Being confined to what Blair does on the internet—c ongregating between talks with Mitch over what he might be up to and their current predicament, and the faces of her crowd appearing together, balking at each other, and then exploding when Laura causes their ruination—might be a bit daunting while It Follows has plenty of places to go (visits to a beach house and the slums of Detroit, the neighborhood which I found eerily reminiscent to those with trees and sidewalks galore in Carpenter’s Halloween and a playground) and does so always reminding us that anywhere in the dark or walking ever so spookily within the everyday norm of society could be “It”. No wonder why I found It Follows such a worthwhile experience while Unfriended amused me with the irony of its title if the proponents of said irony seem much deserved of what takes them out. Not such a bad afternoon at the movies.