It Follows * * * *

There’s nothing like being told by somebody you've just had sex with that they've given you a “present”.
Gee, thanks for that.
But no amount of penicillin is going to clean this up.  
Jay is a nice girl. She meets a nice boy. Has sex with him in his car, then wakes up tied to a chair in a crumbling building with him standing over her.  But he’s still a nice boy.  He apologies about the situation, but he’s sick of this thing following him, so now it can follow her. Sorry Babe…. and here it comes. 

This thing that follows can look like anyone, it mutates from male to female, young to old.  But mostly it looks like someone who has escaped from hospital.  Someone in a surgical gown or in a state of undress and looking most unwell.   The ex-boyfriend (well he would be EX after a stunt like that) tells Jay that it isn't going leave her and it will follow her until she gets rid of it by having sex with someone else. (One look at Jay in her lingerie and you think, well that shouldn't take long.) With “it” being passed on through sex one’s natural assumption is that the whole drama is an analogy for STD's. Almost like a stern lecture: “This is what happens when you sleep around kids”, but you soon realise that’s not really where director, David Robert Mitchell is coming from.  
This is actually a really good horror film. You never know when the follower will appear.  It could be anyplace anytime, frequently in broad daylight. There is no place of safety.  It can’t walk through walls but it can smash a window.  And if it actually gets to you well, it’s curtains baby: as we witness a couple of times.
Jay’s first problem is to convince her sibling and friends that this thing actually exists.  They are slowly persuaded and commit themselves to helping her.   When “it” comes only Jay can see it but her friends sure know it’s there by her screams.  Later, other manifestations let them know that this is for real.
It’s part ghost film, part zombie film and part mystery. But this film knows itself.  It has a confidence that if it tells it’s story in it’s own way you will go with it.  And you do.  It's set in the suburbs of Detroit Michigan, which is a bit like a ghost town with its streets of working class houses now deserted and crumbling thanks to the GFC.   The cast are all young people but few of the accouterments of today's youth are present: We never hear them play rock music, use mobile phones, or get on the internet.  We get the impression it is set today - but aside from the opening scene you could be forgiven for thinking that it is set in the 70’s - and in one scene even in the 50's. With it’s haunting music and dream like quality it creates it’s own world and is actually quite beautiful to look at.
Even greater confidence though, is shown in the plot holes. There are quite a few of them and they are glaring! Almost as glaring as some of the (seemingly) random and irrelevant scenes.  (What on earth was that party of three on a speedboat about?!).  Yet you accept it.  Even their ridiculous plan to end all this.  I sometimes wonder if this is the new film-making. Believe in the power of your seductive story telling and wear your plot holes proudly.
For me, It Follows, was nowhere near as scary as some reviewers suggested - and that’s not because I’m a tough guy - I just found it to be more fascinating than frightening.  It’s quite a unique film.  Some say it’s indebted to John Carpenter and David Lynch.  But I think it is much more inspired by them, than in anyway imitative.