Welcome to the very first Everything But Bone, a column about storytelling in film that looks at everything BUT dialogue. I’m talking sets, costumes, editing, cinematography soundtrack, and all the other aspects that make up the mise en scène. Telling a story effectively isn’t just about the characters talking to each other. Good storytellers know that what the audience sees is just as important as what the characters say in regards to getting the narrative across.
All of the above is why I picked David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 horror film It Follows as my first movie. For those who haven’t seen it, It Follows is about a young woman named Jay who, after sleeping with the guy she’s seeing, is stalked by a murderous ever-changing entity that only she can see. No matter where she goes, the creature will follow her.
Personally, I am a huge fan of It Follows. One of the reasons why is because it’s so effective at building tension. This is clear from the opening scene which works as a perfect example of how this film was made with such care.
Hell, these first three minutes are tight enough to function as a short film in their own right.
The first thing the audience sees is a continuous take of Annie, a teenage girl, trying to get away from an unseen entity. Horror audiences have come to expect that a longer take means something bad is about to happen. Cutting from one shot to the next helps to ease this tension but It Follows doesn’t cut away. Viewers, like Annie, are stuck there waiting for trouble.
Another reason for my love of this scene is Annie’s shoes. Savvy viewers will notice that Annie is wearing heels as she tries to escape. The shoes are not the best thing to wear when you’re being chased by a monster. Running in heels is a fast way to get blisters. But because the audience knows she is wearing heels, it makes the reveal of her gruesome death more unsettling. The reveal borders on the absurd, but the shoe turns what would be exploitative into art.
After a moment of peace and a tearful phone conversation with her dad, the scene cuts to a close up of Annie lying dead on the beach. It then cuts to a long shot that exposes the brutality of the murder. One of Annie’s legs has been bent back the wrong way, the top of her foot now above her chest. What sells this scene as great horror is how it draws the audience’s eyes to Annie’s shoe and the position that no leg should ever be in. It’s the presence of the high heels that truly sells the scene.
Similar to the opening, long shots that frame a character in the center appear throughout, often in combination with a long take. Usually the camera follows our heroine, Jay. The audience knows that Jay is stuck with an entity following her with intentions to kill her but the cinematography gives the feeling that you, too, are trapped with her. You, like her, are looking over her shoulder for a person out of place.
It Follows is full of establishing shots. Like the long shots with a character in the center, these are used to give the viewer a sense of dread. We look off to the side to see if the entity is on screen. Most of the time it’s not but the entity appears just enough to make audiences terrified. This is clear near the end of the film. We see Jay’s house as she and her friends prepare to leave but when the house is shown again, via an extreme long shot, a naked man is standing motionless on the roof.
What about costumes and props? In today’s world of commercialized nostalgia it’s easy to pick up on the fact that It Follows is a throwback to slasher films of old. Although, in my opinion, it gives the genre a classier spin. Still, the film has many visual signifiers that we are watching something with an intentionally ambiguous time period. The cars, TVs, phones, and clothes are from the 70’s to the 90’s. This stylistic choice adds to the uncertain atmosphere and primes audiences to remember classic slashers. Yet, Yara’s seashell e-reader suggests the film is happening at a later date, which helps to keep the true decade unknownable.
You can’t discuss It Follows without talking about the score. One part of films I think viewers sometimes take for granted is the soundtrack and It Follows’ soundtrack adds much to the skin crawling atmosphere. Disasterpeace’s score bursts and blares; it isn’t exactly pleasant listening. But when It walks into Jay’s room, you bet the music makes his sudden appearance all the more frightening.
If it was made full of dead teenagers and overused cliches, It Follows would not have been as successful or as fondly regarded. Reading the script shows how good the story is but without David Robert Mitchell’s choices in the mise en scène, the film wouldn’t have been nearly as good. Imagine it with more traditional cinematography, set clearly in the 2010s, and with a different soundtrack. It just doesn’t work, does it? The film is an excellent example of style used to strengthen a great script by a director and his creative team.
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