Unscary Movie

Overhyped It Follows is a snoozer of a scary movie

Every couple of years, a new horror movie comes along that genre fans proclaim to be the next big thing — either because it puts a clever twist on well-worn tropes or it gets back to the basics of just trying to scare the living bejesus out of people.

This year, that film is supposed to be It Follows, which uses horror movie sex as a plot catalyst. Jay (Maika Monroe) is set on a terrifying journey after she has sex with Hugh (Jake Weary), a boy she recently met. As it turns out, he was just trying to pass on a curse to her that’s transmitted through sex.

Once afflicted, a phantom, in the form of strangers or friends, starts following her wherever she goes. Hugh tells her the only way to avoid being killed by said phantom is to pass on the curse to some other unlucky soul — although even that doesn’t stop the horror, because the curse will revert back to her if that person dies.

Aside from being an obvious allegory about STDs, the appeal of It Follows should lie in its simplicity. Because the phantom can take any form, Jay never knows where it will appear next. Consequently, paranoia for both Jay and the audience should be high.

The problem is, when the phantom appears, it rarely, if ever, feels really threatening. It always moves at a glacial pace, meaning it can be outrun fairly easily. And it never changes form in the middle of an “attack,” so the idea that it could truly be anyone never takes hold, either.

Because Jay’s only solution is to have sex with someone else, you’d think that would be priority No. 1 on her list. Instead, she and her group of friends spend way too much time doing anything but getting rid of the curse. When she finally does try, the attempts are either out-of-nowhere or given less import than they should.

Writer/director David Robert Mitchell, who earned plaudits for his debut film, The Myth of the American Sleepover, just never sells the story. I can appreciate letting the fear of the unknown be the selling point instead of shoving scares in our faces, but the somnambulant nature of the film’s villain takes things too far in the other direction.

Ultimately, It Follows fails to live up to its “next big thing” billing. It elicits too few scares and too many shoulder shrugs.

Maika Monroe in It Follows.

It Follows movie

Photo courtesy of Lone Star Film Festival

Maika Monroe in It Follows.

Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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