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Miltank posted:I had the opposite impression. It seemed to me like Greg was avoiding Jay, and that he dies because he never actually believed her in the first place. I mean, if Greg is trying to avoid Jay, then he does an evidently terrible job by visiting her in the hospital along with all her other friends, and then going over to her house after she was released specifically asking to see her. His immediately seeing other women doesn't mean he's no longer seeing her, and as with Paul's hookers, there's no way of knowing if anything actually came of these 'encounters.' Greg is a lot like the much maligned John Bender of The Breakfast Club - he doesn't 'throw a girl away' after 'using' her. And when she or her friends don't want to see him, he accepts this because that's her prerogative. It's not great, but it's certainly better than Paul's deliberate pressuring of Jay. Jay has Greg 'take the curse' because she can take herself totally out of the equation because he doesn't mean much to her, at least before she has sex with him (there's the touching little hand-holding in the hospital, which Paul winces about). Jay doesn't want to do this with Paul because she can't remove herself from what she's doing, which is having meaningless, survivalist sex with one of her closest friends. Paul pressures her because he imagines that 'love' will make sex less terrifying and uncertain and awkward. It doesn't. edit: I'm just going to admit this, because there's no point in not airing this bias - I despise Paul implicitly because he basically reminds me of myself in high school and college. K. Waste fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 19:58
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What's important about Greg is that at no time does he actually see any activity that suggests It exists. At the beach scene Greg is off taking a piss when stuff happens. He comes back in the middle of this whole thing happening and whenever he sees anything related to It attacking Jay, he sees it from an outsider's perspective and doesn't fully know what's going on. Case in point: the sleepover. He's busy doing something else and witnesses the teens running out of the house following Jay. He agrees to help and drive from a grounded real world perspective: maybe we can find some information about the guy who did this to you. Maybe we can drag his rear end to jail. Maybe Jay's having nightmares and night terrors and panic attacks because she's getting over a sexual assault. Maybe she's traumatized. I know her, I want to help her, so I will, but I don't believe the stuff she's saying about being followed by someone who wants to kill her. Greg plays the skeptic role because he never witnesses anything to the contrary. I even feel like when Paul and Jay and Kelly and Yara ask him if he saw anything, he just really doesn't believe them and he hasn't been looking at all. He has no reason to believe it's real and when you think about it that way, he had sex with a girl to try and make her feel better and try and put her fears to rest. Maybe he wants something more than that, maybe he doesn't seeing how he's still flirting with girls, but it's kinda morally reprehensible that he feels like he got string-free sex out of helping her like he solved her problems and got laid at the same time. Hugh and Paul and Greg are...all pretty good views on teenage boys/young adults who have complicated relationships with girls and sex and consequences and how they really behave in the real world. Which is to say, kinda badly before maturing or realizing what proper behavior is.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:30
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Sorry, just got back from seeing this and will catch up on the thread after I post. It Follows- 6/10 There's a lot to like about this film, and I can see it being a movie that is really fun to watch with friends who are a) into horror movies, and b) into dissecting a scene/themes of a movie. Unfortunately i didn't see it with someone who really does that latter, because there's a lot to talk about from this film. So much so that I'll guess that it's being discussed at length already in this thread. So until I catch up I don't want to get too into breaking the film down. What I do want to get into is why I gave it a 6/10. To put it simply, this movie runs too long. This film would make an EXCELLENT short film, say 45 minutes. It would make an even better episode of the Twilight Zone- I really do think you could fit this movie into a 25 minute episode. As a form of entertainment I just didn't feel there was enough meat here to justify a 1:40 hour long movie. The middle really plods along, from the moment they leave Jeff's (?) house to the time where the main character goes swimming in the ocean, the movie becomes borderline boring. The concept for this film is excellent, but I couldn't help but feel that they were limited by the concept. Since the movie never explains to you what the monster is or how to stop it, it loses a key element that most movies use to fill up time. Don't get me wrong, I LIKED that they didn't explain it, it was refreshing, but the trade off is that there's a solid 20-40 minutes where there's really nothing to do. Instead, the movie chases its tail on themes that the first 20 minutes did an excellent job of establishing. Then we get climax of the film and a slow plodding ending that reminded me of the ending to Return of the King, too many false endings that you knew were just setting you up for the inevitable conclusion. This movie is probably at its best when it's viewed from a critical eye regarding all of the great little homages and care that clearly went into it. I would love to watch a re-cut version that gets it down to 45 minutes because it would probably immediately jump a couple of points.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:42
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Not you specifically Spitz but I generally don't know how horror fans (who read reviews, news, forums, go to conventions, etc.) keep going with the genre if they are perpetually disappointed with stuff like It Follows or Oculus last year. This stuff is the best that wide release has to offer nowadays and if you are only happy with one VOD release every 8-10 months then that just seems miserable to me. Edit: It finally occurred to me that the reason the pool scene seemed so lame at first is that it reminds me a lot of the Are You Afraid of the Dark episode with pool monster. j. alfred moonrock fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 13:42
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Someone needs to let David Robert Mitchell direct a spin-off to the current American Godzilla franchise about Mothra. Something tells me he could make a really dope giant monster movie.
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Mar 31, 2015 16:27
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It Follows was awesome because my date was a grown woman and she held on to my jacket with a death grip pretty much the whole time. It reminded me of good times in high school going to see horror movies before I became desensitized and started posting in the horror thread.
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Mar 31, 2015 16:54
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j. alfred moonrock posted:Not you specifically Spitz but I generally don't know how horror fans (who read reviews, news, forums, go to conventions, etc.) keep going with the genre if they are perpetually disappointed with stuff like It Follows or Oculus last year. This stuff is the best that wide release has to offer nowadays and if you are only happy with one VOD release every 8-10 months then that just seems miserable to me. You're literally the only person I've seen praise Oculus. Horror is quite a varied genre, and there have been plenty of great horror films the past few years, sorry your feel there were only two.
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Mar 31, 2015 18:32
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wyoming posted:You're literally the only person I've seen praise Oculus. Oculus is not a bad movie. It's a solid effort, there's a lot going for it. Full disclosure: I liked Teeth.
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Mar 31, 2015 20:28
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j. alfred moonrock posted:Edit: It finally occurred to me that the reason the pool scene seemed so lame at first is that it reminds me a lot of the Are You Afraid of the Dark episode with pool monster.
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Mar 31, 2015 21:04
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wyoming posted:You're literally the only person I've seen praise Oculus. I'm plenty familiar with the genre, and that's not what I was trying to say at all. I personally think there have been a solid (good not great) number of quality horrors in this time frame released in theaters and VOD, I just think those were the two standout wide releases. So, if someone isn't happy with something as well done as It Follows, then surely they aren't happy with anything else in theaters, which seems sad to me.
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Mar 31, 2015 21:13
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wyoming posted:You're literally the only person I've seen praise Oculus. I liked Oculus. The gore was funny and got a few good cringes out of me, the ghosts were creepy and the wide shot with all of them looked awesome in the theater. I really liked Absentia from the same director so I was halfway expecting a sour anticlimax.
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Mar 31, 2015 21:34
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Sarchasm posted:Oculus is not a bad movie. It's a solid effort, there's a lot going for it. Oculus is not terrible, and it starts out really promising. It's just that it completely loses focus around the halfway point, and then does absolutely nothing of interest until its anticlimactic ending. It's not that I disliked the tone or outcome of the ending, it's just the process of getting there was a complete fumbling of the Chekhov's Gun principle. Chekhov's Gun was fired exactly as the movie tried to make you fear it would be. Compare Oculus's ending to that of You're Next. I was more disappointed by the movie than upset, as the first half really did build a lot of good will. Neo_Reloaded fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 00:50
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I wouldn't say that I found myself disappointed by it in anyway, I just thought that it could have been tighter. I will definitely be recommending it to friends that enjoy thematic movies. I am surprised though that after reading this thread no one else really seems to mind the run time.
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Apr 1, 2015 01:50
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Wraith of J.O.I. posted:I don't think any horror movie will be able to top Let The Right One In's pool scene during the pool scene in "It Follows", when the camera was underwater I kept picturing "Let The Right One In". I wonder if they did that on purpose...
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Apr 1, 2015 04:20
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SpitztheGreat posted:I am surprised though that after reading this thread no one else really seems to mind the run time. It's only 100 minutes dude.
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Apr 1, 2015 04:29
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Wraith of J.O.I. posted:I don't think any horror movie will be able to top Let The Right One In's pool scene Agreed, that shot has stuck with me for years. Beforehand posted:Favorite Twitter reaction? Someone said, essentially, that if they were in the movie, they'd just sleep with a flight attendant and let the thing get some exercise. Funny, in the theater I remember thinking "just fly to Hawaii or Indonesia, wait a while, and fly back". This is a weird comparison, but once they showed that people could touch it and it's just invisible, I thought they would go for a Ninja Scroll ending where the immortal bad guy gets encased in molten gold and dropped into the ocean. Especially with the recurring water theme.
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Apr 1, 2015 11:52
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You gotta make sure It doesn't walk on the plane while all the passengers are boarding. Then you're really hosed once the plane takes off.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:16
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sticklefifer posted:Funny, in the theater I remember thinking "just fly to Hawaii or Indonesia, wait a while, and fly back". This unintentionally gets to the heart of the film's class themes: The college suburbanites are economically dependent on their parents, but they at least have a shot at this. Detroit's poor don't even have that option. Their access to resources that conspicuously masks the threat of rape, STIs, etc. - as opposed to actually dealing with the problem - is virtually none.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:16
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:You gotta make sure It doesn't walk on the plane while all the passengers are boarding. Then you're really hosed once the plane takes off. I still want to see It just totally wreck someone in a public setting.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:53
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Grem posted:I still want to see It just totally wreck someone in a public setting. Just wait for It in Times Square.
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Apr 1, 2015 16:55
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Just wait for It in Times Square. People in Times Square would think it's elaborate performance art and just whip out their cell phones. [edit] It's interesting reading people's interpretations of some scenes. I figured the boat scene was more of a shorthand way of showing things she was forced to think about doing to get rid of it, rather than something she actually went through with. Like "these are random people, I could do this if I have to". For one, I don't know that she could swim all the way out there with the cast on, plus the idea that she already knows how it works and only one person would pass it on, not three. Also the idea of a girl with a broken arm in a cast suddenly swimming all the way to your offshore boat, climbing on board and saying "all of you need to have sex with me now" would realistically skeeve out most men unless you think every man is a drooling sex fiend who can't resist any offer regardless of whether his friends are watching/participating. Frankly the implication that the movie glossed over a "gangbang" would suddenly make the tone a LOT darker, and in my opinion would make the film itself way sleazier and more sex-negative if it was the actual interpretation. It also glosses over the murder of whoever the first one was, and the logistics of the other two not being able to fend it off and/or her not telling them anything about it, in which case Jay is a deliberate murderer and less sympathetic (consider the STI parallel if she knowingly gave HIV to a bunch of strangers). If you actually try to play any of that out, the logic falls apart and in my mind hurts the film. I don't see the point of having several very heavy plot points like that happen entirely offscreen just due to a single scene on the beach of her briefly entering the water, so I don't think she did. I think she was considering it, and the point of the scene was to show the things a person in that situation would have to consider - things an even more desperate person or a person who cared less about people would have to do, and probably has done in the history of this thing. In contrast, I interpreted the ending as Paul having actually passed it to a prostitute, who would then quickly pass it on again, rather than just scoping them out as an option. That does have similar deliberate implications as the boat scene would if you interpreted that Jay went through with it, except that you don't know whether it would get back to anyone or if it would keep passing on. Whether or not it was still alive after the pool, they feel safe in the end shot because there are now likely at least two layers of buffer between them if you include the prostitute and her next client (three buffers between Jay and the follower including Paul), and if it comes back to the prostitute because a client was killed, she'll likely continue passing it along before it has time to get back to her again. Still, even with those layers of comfort, the implication of the person walking in the background in that final scene is "...but you never really know". sticklefifer fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 18:31
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sticklefifer posted:People in Times Square would think it's elaborate performance art and just whip out their cell phones. Exactly. It'd be a real hoot.
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Apr 1, 2015 18:43
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The ghost just walking along the bottom of the ocean tickles me slightly
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Apr 1, 2015 19:02
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Just saw it. Great soundtrack, some really great scenes. I really liked it, though I think there were some choices in terms of execution I wasn't a huge fan of. I really love all the music and weird videogame sound effects. I love that it both terrified me and made me laugh, which I don't think is a sensation I've had in film before despite the existence of "horror comedy" films. None of the films with that label ever managed to both make me laugh and terrify me like this. You see an old lady tramping down a school hallway, realize this is the horror villain of the film, find yourself chuckling, and also find yourself growing uneasier and uneasier. It was like, for me none of the laughter hurt the tension or horror somehow, I was able to chuckle at the dude on the roof but also be weirded out. Nervous laughter, maybe? And then there's the constant paranoia and tension, basically every scene you find yourself contemplating the arrival of the follower, and I loved all the scenes where you can see it coming in the background but she can't. There's also this constant sense of claustrophobia that is effective, I think, the horror of what the follower does makes both the indoors and outdoors locations feel cramped and suffocating. I thought the scenes indoors were great (but I'd also be like "WHY ARE YOU IN AN ABANDONED PLAYGROUND. THAT IS THE LAST PLACE I'D LIKE TO GO AT THAT POINT.") The obvious strategies are just constantly loving and moving (try to be an NBA player if possible), starting a new life in Japan, or having an emotional team relationship with someone you trust who is aware of the consequences and creates a "four eyes are better than two" situation. I didn't feel like Greg deserves any flak though, I mean, sure he didn't seem to believe her as easily but if you really consider what she's trying to have them believe I don't think that makes him stupid or a dick. And the thing is, she's the one who isolates him, he tries to make contact with her but she locks herself away, so they're not together like they should be to watch out for each other's backs. She tries to change that at the latest possible moment. However seriously he did or didn't believe in a concept that, for the film and for the viewer is as silly and ridiculous as it is horrifying, he at least tried. I mean, it's hard to blame him for incompetence in such a situation where it's both preposterous and she isn't really actively trying to help him understand or at least maybe keep an eye out. Maybe at least be around him long enough for him to see his first "follower" and make sure he understands that the horror is real, she could have done that, I know he took this upon himself willingly but surely she has some responsibility in watching over him initially or working together initially. Don't just leave the dude hanging in his unprepared uncertainty. The rear end in a top hat who gave it to her did more for getting her prepared than she did for Greg. Where it doesn't get as good for me, and just to note I really did like it overall regardless, is when other people start interacting with the follower in goofyass ways. Throwing chairs, getting pushed, all the shots where it's invisible or gets a goofy blanket thrown on it to get shot, I just didn't like that stuff. Nor did I like us flatout seeing the death of Greg like that, I would have preferred her walking in and seeing him dead, looking in and looking horrified but without us seeing what she saw, or I don't know, basically anything other than a weird (certainly grotesque, but still too goofy for me) dry humping mom of death scene. Don't get me wrong, it was still grotesque and kind of horrifying to consider, but it kind of crossed the line into silliness for me. I was reminded of the Electric Six "Danger! High Voltage" video for some reason. I think at some point it starts "showing" too much as a film, but like I said I still really liked it. I like all the stuff you can interpret about sexuality and mental illness and trauma, and the subtle moments of subversion and "expecting something that luckily doesn't happen" people have mentioned. This is my favorite film of 2015 so far but to be fair I haven't gotten around and seen a ton of new 2015 movies. It could've been better, but I enjoyed it. There were a lot of scenes where I just turned to my friends just like, "Holy gently caress did that just happen?" or just broke out laughing (it was an empty movie theater other than us). It helps that I saw it high. The laughter! The paranoia! Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Apr 2, 2015 |
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Apr 2, 2015 08:50
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Was Greg a bit older than the rest? Could be that the fact that he's already started to lose his innocence of youth is tied to him not fully believing as much as the other kids. Obviously he misses out on events the others see, but it reminds me of the adults in Stephen King's, yes, IT not being able to see/refusing to see the evil that the kids in Derry see. I think there's some more similarities to IT that I can't quite put my finger on too. IT spoilers, I guess: Although in a way, it's the direct opposite. In IT, the teenagers actually defeat the demon by having sex.
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Apr 2, 2015 10:13
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I think finding out how It kills lead to a pretty horrific realization for me but only when I went back and thought about the film and not in the moment it's actually revealed. When they first show the initial girl's death on the beach I couldn't help but wonder what the gently caress happened that her leg was bent back over her head like that. Then you find out It basically fucks you to death and you flashback to that image and 
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Apr 2, 2015 16:11
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So is it safe to assume that Greg had sex with someone else after Jay and that's why it took It so long to go after him? If so though why wouldn't he have said anything about it?
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Apr 2, 2015 16:33
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:So is it safe to assume that Greg had sex with someone else after Jay and that's why it took It so long to go after him? If so though why wouldn't he have said anything about it? He might not have even had sex. It coulda just taken It a while.
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Apr 2, 2015 16:41
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It doesn't seem that weird that a teen (or person) would lie about sex, especially since Greg seemed interested in her beyond just a one-off thing.K. Waste posted:He might not have even had sex. It coulda just taken It a while. 
morestuff fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Apr 2, 2015 |
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Apr 2, 2015 16:45
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sticklefifer posted:This is a weird comparison, but once they showed that people could touch it and it's just invisible, I thought they would go for a Ninja Scroll ending where the immortal bad guy gets encased in molten gold and dropped into the ocean. Especially with the recurring water theme. More movies need to end with BURN IN YOUR GOLDEN HELL tbh
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Apr 2, 2015 17:01
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Neumonic posted:I liked Oculus. The gore was funny and got a few good cringes out of me, the ghosts were creepy and the wide shot with all of them looked awesome in the theater. I liked both. I also liked It Follows. Atmospheric horror just works for me. I can totally understand how someone wouldn't like atmospheric horror though.
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Apr 2, 2015 18:42
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Kelly and Paul are younger than Jay, right? Jay needs to hang out with kids her own age.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:21
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-eC_Hd5FU If the movie doesn't have this song I'll still probably see it but I'll be slightly disappointed.
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Apr 3, 2015 00:44
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j. alfred moonrock posted:Not you specifically Spitz but I generally don't know how horror fans (who read reviews, news, forums, go to conventions, etc.) keep going with the genre if they are perpetually disappointed with stuff like It Follows or Oculus last year. This stuff is the best that wide release has to offer nowadays and if you are only happy with one VOD release every 8-10 months then that just seems miserable to me. There's a huge backlog of films for most fans (and people who show up at horror conventions are normally all about finding backlog films) and genre fans tend to enjoy re-watching films anyway.
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Apr 3, 2015 01:18
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The ghost in this movie had great potential for mankind. You could probably rig up a nice turnstyle contraption and have it generate free power forever.
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Apr 3, 2015 03:15
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I definitely fit that bill, but I stand by the perspective that there is still stuff worth respecting that occasionally finds its way into theaters and its a bummer that a good chunk of genre fans disagree. Re: the physical interactions with the monster, the only time it really took me out of the moment was when it pulled Jay's hair.. It's approach feels so oppressive because it seems like it would be game over the moment it touches you. But nah, it plays with your hair a little before it fucks you to death?
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Apr 3, 2015 03:31
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j. alfred moonrock posted:
I don't really like it interacting too much with the world or non-cursed/whatever people interacting too much with it. I know it would break windows with rocks, and I actually liked that a lot, but I don't know...once it started picking up TVs and poo poo it was just too much. Like the moment you see the monster standing full on at the end in Cloverfield. Previously it had this ominous and mysterious untouchable unstoppable feeling and then it spends a bunch of time loving around a swimming pool while the Scooby Doo gang try to throw blankets on it and poo poo. Punkin Spunkin fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 03:58
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That was my initial reaction to the ending but then I thought about it and I'm not sure what other direction they could have gone in. I don't think another half hour of her friends wondering if she's insane or not would have been entertaining.
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Apr 3, 2015 04:27
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I feel like what gets left out is that the clumsiness of the monster is what makes it 'iconic.' There's a lot of characterization going on with regards to It and its potential behavior patterns, which we're shown only in brief, Stephen King's It-like 'nightmares.' Basically, although it's a humanoid entity, its movements are almost more like slithering, and its mouth is actually in its crotch. What's interesting is that this year's V/H/S: Viral actually had precisely the same twist for its segment "Parallel Monsters." Basically, what looks like a human is actually this vermin, this literal parasite that takes on the likeness of a person, but otherwise is this literally unknown, blank enigma.
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Apr 3, 2015 05:03
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There's some clear vagina symbolism in the one girls prominently shown clam phone, but I don't really see the point.
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Apr 4, 2015 07:56
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