What is It Follows Legacy?

It Follows follows (haha) a long tradition of horror movies that capture a protagonist being consumed by paranoia.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 886: What is It Follows Legacy?

"Essential" movies are an interesting bunch. In some ways they always feel a touch overrated after a generation of movie fans sing them praises. And in other ways, an essential movie's ultimate impact can be hard to trace. Take The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's rightly considered a seminal horror film thanks to its grimy intensity, it's signature villain Leatherface, and the assault on the audience's psyche. But if you just looked at the work of Tobe Hooper or the film's many many spin-offs you'd be hard pressed to say "this is this movie's legacy." What I'm trying to say is that it's not always a straight-line. Which brings me to It Follows a new classic whose legacy is stronger than you might think.

Reminder/Recap

The movie centers around college student Jay Height, who enjoys a sexual tryst with a fella named Hugh. But unbeknownst to her, Hugh was carrying something more terrifying that an STD. He's contracted an unstoppable demon that will invisibly pursue it's target, in any form, until killing said target in a horrific fashion. Starring down an impossible situation, how can Jay escape this being's clutches?

A lot of the initial discussion around It Follows focused on the film's two pronged gimmick. The first is the one that got the most attention, and it makes sense why: this curse is passed one through sex. There's been countless write-ups about this. About how it fits into the horror genre's judgment of young people being sexually active and punishing them with death. About how this demon is essentially an STD with a death sentence.

And that's fruitful ground to cover. The film was written and directed by a man, so there's plenty to unpack about his take, aka why is a woman the main target in the movie? That all makes sense. Hell the main poster features a lit up car where Jay and Hugh are copulating in Hugh's car. That's the selling point.

But the second prong of the gimmick, is, in my opinion underrated and more indicative of this movie's legacy: the slow, creeping, force that follows our protagonist around.

Feminist Paranoia

It Follows follows (haha) a long tradition of horror movies that capture a protagonist being consumed by paranoia. Sometimes for good reason. Sometimes it's all in their head.

What's makes It Follows stand out is that...only Jay can see it. Jay's friends might be able to give it form by throwing a sheet on it or get flung around the room by it. But this is Jay's burden and experience to bear. So even when she has allies, she feels isolated. And they all have to take her word for it.

And that slightly feminist edge, aka you may not understand it, but trust a young woman when they come to you looking like they're afraid for their life, has become a recurring, if not a pervasive theme in modern horror. And that could just be movies starring Jay actress Maika Monroe.

While women in peril has been a staple of the horror and thriller genre since it's inception, it's rarely been this focused on women's perspectives and feminist themes with a litany of female protagonists taking on all kinds of abusive partners or stand-ins for other issues like women's bodily autonomy.

Like take a look Maika Monroe's filmography and some of this year's best received horror movies.

Maika Monroe has starred in:

• Longlegs gigantic hit about a young FBI agent trying to get people to unravel a horrific set of demonic murders to superiors that don't take her 100% seriously
• Significant Other: a horrifying sci-fi tale about male partners attempting to control their female counterparts.
• Watcher: An upsetting thriller about an isolated young woman in a new country realizing she's being stalked.
• The Stranger: A woman with a history of mental illness being terrorized by a tech genius who wants to make her break because she's a "bad person."
• Villains: Two criminals encounter the wrong f***ing house during their escape and end up in a darkly funny and terrifying vision of a traditional household.

And this year we have...

• Apartment 7A: a prequel to Rosemary's Baby that takes the women's bodily autonomy themes and amps them up to eleven.
• The First Omen: a prequel to The Omen that takes women's bodily autonomy themes and amps them up to eleven.
• Immaculate a stand alone movie where a nun to be is pregnany without having sex ...that takes women's bodily autonomy themes and amps them up to eleven.
• Oddity a blind woman looks to supernaturally avenge her sister's murder, that she believes was done by someone besides the convicted killer
• Stopmotion: a young woman attempts to unravel her art from her troubled relationship with her toxic mother
• The Substance: A feminist-themed body horror movie
• You'll Never Find Me: A mysterious young woman visits a middle aged man in his trailer as the audience wonders who the monster of these two is.
• Alien: Romulus: One of the crew members on this doomed voyage is pregnant and our hero is a lady
• Somewhere Quiet: Woman attempts to recover from an abduction and potentially being gaslit
• Lisa Frankenstein: Young woman makes an undead boyfriend that helps her take on the abusive figures in her life.
• The Front Room: Pregnant woman's mother-in-law moves in and everything goes to hell

And I could keep going for another couple minutes.

My main point, is that the horror genre, isn't just casting women as their terrified lead characters. They're centering their experiences in the moviea. And I think that's both awesome and could be traced to movies like It Follows and The Babadook and Ready or Not. The future of this genre, is female.