It Follows

I used to daydream about being old enough to go on dates. I had this image of myself holding hands with a really cute guy. Driving along some pretty road. It's never about going anywhere really. Having some sort of freedom, I guess. Okay? You awake? You're not gonna believe me. I need you to remember what I'm saying. This thing. It's gonna follow you. Somebody gave it to me. And I passed it to you. Whatever you are. It's someone walking straight for you. All you can do is pass it along to someone else. Hello, Sydney. Who is this? It's your killer host. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic.

And welcome to. What's your favorite scary movie? What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. Oh my god. Welcome back to our main podcast feed. You'll never believe who it is, Caroline and Ian. Thank you, thank you, thank you. How does it feel to be back on the uh the main pod? We are just proud, happy, and thrilled. Now, riddle me this. Have you guys been away completely, or have perhaps we've been recording other episodes that have appeared not on the main podcast feed?

Well, it depends on if you're a true fan or not. And then you would know the answer. Shots fired. Yeah. So if you're not on our Patreon, you're not a true fan. What else are you doing with your stimulus money? Exactly. There has been absolutely 0% drought of Caroline and Ian because we have been hard at work on our Patreon putting out content. So if you were like, oh boo-hoo, where's Caroline and Ian? That was your mistake because you could have had it. Probably more than a boo-hoo. They've probably been crying themselves to sleep every night thinking that we were gone for good. Well, I'm hoping that you guys will be back, you know. But if you want more Caroline and Ian, then you can head to patreon.com slash scary movie pod and get your fill.

Okay. So you guys, I was very excited for this episode, and I spoke in past tense just now, but the excitement continues. We watched tonight the 2014 contemporary classic, some might say. It follows. Now, It Follows one has been heavily requested. I've received multiple messages asking for us to cover It Follows, and you're welcome. Here we are covering It Follows. It Follows was released in 2014, a mere six years ago. And it was written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. It Follows was his second feature, which he followed up with Under the Silver Lake from 2018, which I have not seen. I've heard it is bizarre, but it is two and a half hours, so I didn't watch it.

Oh my god. Now the real star of the show, well, David, you're great, I'm sure. I love the movie. But the star of the show that I've been so excited to bring up is the composer for It Follows, Disaster Peace. I am obsessed with this soundtrack. I have some of the songs on my regular playlist that I listen to. Disaster Piece before It Follows had composed a lot of music for video games, and then Return to Compose the soundtrack for Under the Silver Lake. I feel like that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I think that the music I texted you before we started the movie. I said, volume up because the music slaps. I did.

Towards the beginning, I looked at Ann and I was like, I'm very much so enjoying this musical score. Now, I might have been consuming a little bit of wine while I was watching this movie, but there was a point where the music started and I just closed my eyes and did a little like for everyone that doesn't have Parker raises arms into the air, waves them like he just does not care. It is a full-body experience watching it follows. This movie stars make a monro as Jay. She was in The Guest also in 2014 and Villains in 2019. Good movie. Beautiful, lovely. How old is she? Uh ageless. Oh. Puka Shell necklace. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will have to say Puka Who?

We can talk about this later, but the uh like time line era on this movie was uh something to chat about later on. Ian, is Puka Shell your drag name? Puka Who That's a great drag name. Yeah, I you're welcome. Take that and run. Um we also have Keir Gilchrist as Paul. Um cute little thing in horror genre. He's been in Dead Silence from 2007, but Parker has a little bit of nostalgia uh because he starred in two of his high school favorites. Would you like to say them, Parker? No, I think you're doing great. This is all news to me. Oh, uh well, it's kind of a funny story. Is the movie from 2010 and United States of Tara.

Tara. Oh my god, he flew. Tara. Oh. Oh wow, how did you know that I loved those when I was in high school? Because he had a big fat crush on Keir Gilchrist. Well, I might say it's because in United States of Terra. Spoilers, he is a gay character, and so maybe I was just like, oh, is that me? Big fan. Uh we also have Daniel Zavato as Greg. A name you've said before on this very podcast. Because he was in Don't Breathe, Lady Bird, um, and Penny Dreadful, City of Angels. We also have Olivia Licardi as Yara. She was in Oranges and the New Black, Channel Zero, and The Deuce, uh, as well as Lily Sepe in the role of Kelly.

She was in The Intruder in 2019, and her first credit is playing young Lizzie in a single episode of Lizzie McGuire. Roll the tapes. I need to see it. The IMDB summary reads: A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter. Now, wait, riddle me this. I read an interview with um David Robert Mitchell, and he said that when he was trying to hype the movie before it came out, people would ask him what the movie was about, and he would just kinda be like, if I tell you it'll sound stupid. Yeah. No spoilers about what you think about this movie, but it's it's a it's a somewhat silly premise when said aloud.

I mean, if I would have just heard that IMDB summary standalone, I would be like, this is going to be a like really bad, low budget 1970s movie. Shots fired. Yeah, well, I'm just the summary, yeah. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is a 96%. The audience score is 66%. The critics consensus is quote, smart, original, and above all, terrifying. It follows is the rare horror, modern horror film that works on multiple levels and leaves a lingering sting. It's ow! Stunning. Ian just made rare a three-syllable word. It's impressive. I thought it was a beautiful um telling, Ian. Thanks, Parker. It was good. I didn't mean that. She's just in one of those moods. Alright, alright. You guys, mom, dad, stop.

If you were to give just some rando on the street your first reaction to the 2014 film, it follows, what would be the words out of your mouth? Waste. Alright. Talk to the grumpy one now. Caroline, he needs his moment. I need to hear more about that. You know, if if you've followed along on the podcast journey with us, that Ian has another rating, and it's the sleeper rating. And today, after many, many weeks of not falling asleep to a movie, I think I dozed off for a couple minutes. Parker, I will tell you that I was giving my best shot at poking him every couple minutes. I was about to say, were you throwing your phone on the floor?

Does everyone know that story? Did we talk about that on here? Yeah, we did. What movie was that for? I don't know. But we were Ian was clearly sleepy. And Parker, every five minutes, not so nonchalantly, would throw his phone on the floor to wake Parker to wake Ian up. Why didn't you just say wake up? Well, because I feel like earlier another time you'd gotten mad at me. But it was funny because I would throw my phone on the floor, Caroline clearly being like, idiot, and then Ian would be like, Whoa, what's going on? Like, what hold on to that? Like I must say, when I picked this movie, I I thought that Ian, you might be a fan of it.

And I will also say that I have not seen it since the theaters. I don't believe. I don't want to ruffle any feathers here, but it slaps a little bit less than I remember it slapping in the theaters. Uh, there were a few moments when I saw this, like on the big screen, I yelled aloud because I was scared. When the large man barrels into that bedroom after Yara, I yelled aloud. I thought this movie was terrifying. Uh I just I did not have that same experience this time. I will say, as I said earlier, the score absolutely slaps. That was big driving force of this movie. I thought some of the shots were really cool.

Yeah. But I just like the plot was like stupid. Yeah, towards the end, I will say that I was like, alright, it is um following. I would love for something else to occur. Yeah. I think I enjoyed like the overall aesthetic of the movie. Like Anzen, there were some really beautiful shots that like almost were like, wow, that it seems very like artistic and like shouldn't belong in here, like certain frames. I think I was kind of drawn into like this like teenage and it it almost was like I know that it was current, but it felt like a 80s-90s movie with I don't know, even like the dialogue and like the sound quality a little bit and like certain moments in it.

I couldn't like pinpoint exactly what time frame they were going for. Yeah, well, I think that you are definitely hooking into something intentional there because um David Robert Mitchell has gone on record. I was reading a great interview on The Guardian uh from 2015. He has gone on record to say that this is supposed to be like a very the only word coming to my mind is timeless, but that's the wrong word because not timeless, but a movie without time or place in time is intentional because there are old TVs and black and white movies playing on those TVs, but then Yara has this like weird phone e-reader thing that's like high-tech that she's reading. So it's a strange, like alternate reality where there is technology, but there's also not.

Nobody has like a cell phone that they're calling people on. Like uh at one point Jay calls someone on a time on a landline. There's nothing that can really tell you when this movie is, because it it isn't really anywhere. Yeah, but I just thought it was like it seemed so intentional, like it felt like a 80s horror film, like the way they talk to each other or just yeah, and it definitely plays homage. I know that a lot of people have compared this movie to Halloween or a few other like 70s, 80s movies, and I think that that is definitely um true, and I wonder if that has anything to do with people's affection for this movie.

This movie was a big hit, it was made on a million dollars, so in the grand scheme, not that much, but like I'd take a million dollars if anyone was offering. But it made, I believe, 20, like 23.5 million in theaters, and it had a pretty limited release, I believe. And so it was a big hit. And actually, I think that this movie was one of the very first in the kind of current um the buzzword everyone throws out is elevated horror. The trend that has seen the Babaduok and The Lighthouse and Midsummer and Hereditary and Get Out and Us and all those movies that are kind of the big mainstream horror movies coming out in theaters right now that people are like, ah, horror is an art and not just, you know, big booby ladies running around getting killed.

I think that this movie was at the very beginning of that trend. And it's actually tough because It Follows came out, I believe, just after the Babadook. So I was trying to come up with my timeline, but the Babadook kind of came into its cult following after its release. So I think It Follows was kind of the first of the current horror trend. So I think it has a pretty big role in the timeline of horror history. Looking at the actual movie, the cold open of this movie definitely rules. I was immediately drawn in, and there are quite a few little tidbits in this opening scene that I thought were really impressive. The be the first thing I think is that it's very unsettling that this girl is clearly distressed, and we have no idea what's going on.

Even you hear her dad say, Is everything okay? And she says, I'm fine, dad. That in itself is very atypical for a horror movie because it's like you know that there are people around her that could potentially help, but for some reason something horrible is happening, and it keeps this suspense of is something happening? What's going on? until we see her body on the beach, legs snapped this way and that. It is so bizarre. Did y'all think that this kind of set the scene in a good or bad way for the movie? Honestly, though of everything that was in this movie, that shot of her dead on the beach was like the worst thing you see.

When would that have happened? In like the first five minutes. I know, but like Okay, yeah, I understand what you're saying. I was also thinking this because Hugh is the guy that passed it to Jay. Mm-mm. And my thought was did Hugh sleep with that girl and then pass it to her, and then they killed her, and then they were back after Hugh? Or was this just like setting the scene? This was like long before. Hmm. Yeah, I'm not quite sure the answer to that question, and I have to admit it has never occurred to me. Uh, because you'd see that same girl again later in the movie as Jay is speeding away from the beach house that they're at.

She is the one that is following her um as her friends are like, That's my car. It has to have been before the movie that we're watching. Hugh says that, like, if they would have gotten Jay, then they would just keep going down the line of where it came from. So maybe Hugh, who we later find out is Jeff, maybe he slept with that girl, and then that girl got killed, and then it came back to him, and then he slept with her. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, but here's my where this gets screwed up. I think the photo that was found in his book, I couldn't tell, but it looked like the girl that we first saw at the beginning of the movie, which would really screw things up.

That's what I always thought, too. Because that was his high school girlfriend, and he said that he got it from a girl that he picked up at a bar. Stop asking me questions. Moving on. Food for thought, everyone. I have no answers. And um, you know, I wasn't planning on whipping this quote out until later, but I'm gonna whip it out now. In the interview that I mentioned earlier with The Guardian, Mitchell says, the film is a nightmare. If you find yourself in a nightmare, there's no trying to explain the logic of it, you just try to survive. So I was going to use that for a point I had later, but I'm using it now to say, we're leaving that subject behind, there's no explanation, moving on.

Yep. I need to say one thing. Say it. If you know that these Dementors can only walk to you, two strategies here. Yep. Get on a cruise or fly across the world and to a different country. Funny you bring that up because the quote that I just read was uh the director, David Robert Mitchell, responding to that very question. Someone had asked him why couldn't you just get on a plane? And he said, if it, air quotes it, could get on the plane, he wouldn't it it wouldn't, it would kill you. If it couldn't, it would keep walking until it got to you anyway. Yeah, so that's a solid like seven months of walking underwater for that thing, where you can just go live your life.

Well, yes, agreed. But I also think you're hitting on a big piece of the horror that we'll be looping back to a little bit later, that no matter how much you put it off, it will still always be following. Again, ahead of schedule, I was anticipating bringing up this anecdote later, but the director, and he's also the writer, I keep saying director, he wrote the movie too. This is kind of his movie, David Robert Mitchell. He uh specifically said that he had a nightmare when he was a child about being followed, and that was kind of the inspiration for this movie. Obviously, it didn't have quite the same expanded universe that this movie had, but that was the inspiration, and it kind of got me thinking.

When I was a child, I had a movie, or a movie, a nightmare exactly like this that I would have over and over again. And it was horrible. And maybe that's why this movie hit so hard for me the first time I saw it. Because I had this nightmare when I was a child that was me running up a never-ending hill. It was a grass hill. I remember it vividly. And this like zombie-ish person f uh chasing me up the hill. And it never ended. And I would wake up and I would be too afraid to go back to sleep. So it would be like typical horror movie. Me laying in bed, just like, stop it, stop it.

Don't go back to sleep. Aw sad. I really empathized with that inspiration for It Follows. Well, Parker, to that, I say, There's always gonna be another mountain. You're always gonna want to make it move. But it's the climb. I was ready to stop climbing about then. I used to have a recurring nightmare where I was like in a doctor's waiting room, and then they would call my name, and I had to stand on this like little ledge, and there was this big machine that was slowly moving towards me, like like centimeters until I had no room left on the ledge to stand, and I would fall off. So in this situation, it was not human but a giant machine.

In a doctor's office. Wow. See, it's a universal story, really. I would think from the first kind of half of this movie, the thing that really roped me in the most was the characters. I really enjoyed the characters and how much I felt like I kind of got to spend time with them before things really started shaking loose. Because, well, I guess before they go to the vacation house, when they're in her room and the large man that I mentioned earlier that scared me so much, I feel like I get a pretty good feel for her and her kind of like typical awkward teen self and her like gaggle of friends that she's close with that apparently just come to her house every day.

And that I think really made the rest of the movie feel a little bit more resonant because I felt like I got to r care about them and was I was sad that there was the potential for all of them to die. Yeah, they all seem like sweet little kids, but they have like a weird I don't know. So like Kelly is her little sister and Paul is in love with her. But also, like, I think might have dated her little sister too. Yeah, she says that they've kissed. Yeah, so that was interesting. And also that other one is just like a little bit odd. Yeah. Well, she's clearly the best one because early on in the movie there's a really sweet fart joke that happens, and um, I really related to that moment.

Hey, I have an idea who forced me to eat to one message. Okay, and then Hot Guy Across the Street was like sizing Yara up as well. That hot guy across the street is really the uh tipping point for me in this movie because you know, there's all of this horrible things happening, and Jay runs to this park, and all of her friends are like, Oh my god, what's going on? We're gonna help you. And then that guy just walks up and is like, Hey, yo, get in my car. And then suddenly he's just like part of the gang. Yeah. And like, I don't think they all like him very much, but then I mean, he has a car, so you gotta be friends with him, right?

And apparently a vacation house. It was a very strange situation. So, yeah, he has a beautiful mane of hair, but I also was like, who's this douche? And also, her high school is massive. At first, I thought maybe she's a freshman in college because there's a huge campus for this high school, and then later there are like bells and announcements that are very like, oh, this is high school. I think that there are a couple of highlight scenes from this movie that we should hit on before talking big picture. The first one would probably be the scene that started it all when Jay goes on a date with Hugh slash Jeff, and he they have a little sexy time, and then he surprise passes her out with some fumes, and she gets the very first spiel of what it is.

The very the thing that sticks out to me is this iconic shot now. I really think this stands out in horror canon, of them having sex in the backseat of the car, and it's kind of like a wide shot with the car in the middle. Beautiful. And then later her playing with the flowers with her fingers. But I thought it was pretty shocking that they've kind of set up these relationships. Maybe since the beginning scene, you've forgotten it's a horror movie, and then bam, he hits her with some uh what's that chemical that a lot of people take people out with? Ian, you would know. Gasoline? No. Chloroform. Clor yeah, chloroform. Ian, come on, I was relying on you.

All straight men know what that is. Exactly. So takes her out, and this is a scene that would usually get on my nerves because he has it tied to a wheelchair, and he takes a minute to just tell her everything that's happening, everything a potential viewer who might be watching this in a movie theater would need to know for the rest of the movie. But I disagree because first, the music is incredible, even though this is a quieter scene, but it's kind of amped me up for this moment, and the tension is building so intensely to this moment where he shows her this naked lady that's walking up to this parking garage that they're in, or big dilapidated skyrise.

I don't know what it is, but this woman walking up, and there's just this building dread as the woman's getting closer and closer, and he's telling her, like, you can't, you can't touch her, you gotta stay away from this it that's following you. And it all kind of culminates with uh this incredible camera shot of her trying to get out of the chair and the camera shaking really crazy, and then him dumping her on the street, which I thought was really upsetting. So I thought this was just an incredible moment in the movie. I mean, the actual in the parking garage scene, like I didn't think that was super scary. I think what was actually unsettling is him dumping her in front of her house.

Uh, and all of her friends seeing. Yeah, like that was just like sad, and um that's when I texted Parker, and I was like, one is this movie about STDs based on the explanation. Clearly. But then also, like, there's obviously some commentary on rape and and all of that, um, and just like how women feel after that kind of experience. Definitely, and I think that that last point that you just made kind of leads into the other big scene that I think in the first half of the movie, where Jay hears the very first break into her house when there is the woman who is in her living room peeing on herself and she's got teeth missing and a boob out of her bra.

And I think that that kind of speaks to the the way that when you're young and perhaps you lose your virginity, and I'm not speaking to everyone's experience. Maybe you had a wonderful experience losing your virginity, but the way that maybe after you've had sex for the first time, you feel because of this stigma that culture has just been trained to put on not just women but anyone to feel after they've had sex that sex is maybe wrong or dirty or icky, and I really felt all of that culminating in this woman walking towards her and she is just revolting. And I thought that maybe Jay was feeling perhaps that way, especially because her situation was so public with her being dumped on the street in front of all of her friends.

I think also the scene where Jay is in the bathroom, like the next morning, she's just like checking herself out a little bit, and then someone like threw a ball at the window. And at that point, like in her shoes, she has had sex for the first time, I'm assuming, and then like just gets told all of these horrible things, but she doesn't actually know what the scary thing is, um, like after she's been dumped, like no one's followed her yet. So it's like, is this how it's always gonna be? Like, what are the horrors that actually follow? And she's just like questioning all of that. I thought that was interesting. Beautifully said. Well, I want to go ahead and say that when it comes to it follows, there are kind of two camps of thought.

There are the people who think this movie are is about STDs, and there are the people who get really mad anytime anyone says this movie is about STDs. I think that I fall in neither camp because I think that the movie is about all of the above. I'll start with a quote from Mitchell, the writer-director, from the same article that I've been referencing. This article was so good, he really spilled the tea, as some might say. He says, Jay opens herself up to danger through sex, but sex is the one way in which she can free herself from that danger. We're all here for a limited amount of time and we can't escape our mortality. But love and sex are two ways in which we can, at least temporarily, push death away.

So I don't think anyone's actually wrong here. The large thought, when you look a little bit bigger than the movie being about STIs, is that it, the it that follows, is death, but in the camp of people thinking that it is a sexually transmitted infection, it's all the same outcome. They're just thinking of it in a very specific vein. So I think that it follows, really, let's all just join hands and become unified because I think we're all thinking the same thing, that no matter what you do, death is stalking all of us, and there's no way to escape kind of the mortality that we're all born into. As Lana Del Rey says, we're born to die.

There is a larger picture that even the teens in this movie don't necessarily understand because they're clearly all obsessed with sex too. I have a few more thoughts about that that maybe we'll get to in a moment, because I want to hit on a couple of the other big scenes in this movie, one of them being the vacation house. I love this scene because I think that it's set up in a few ways that are really smart. The first way is that everyone's sitting in a circle on the beach, and you see Yara walking up behind Jay. I think it's pretty clear every time it is approaching, it does not look like normal people. It walks in a very specific way.

But you might be thinking, oh, that's just Yara being a goofball, and then they kind of have a whole scene of conversation as it is getting closer, and then you see Yara just casually float into frame on a tube in the ocean. Or ocean. Let's see, they're in Detroit, so I guess a lake, yeah. I didn't actually think that that was Yara walking up behind. Well, it certainly was, and I was kind of stunned because I mean I had seen the movie before, so I knew it was gonna go down. But if you hadn't, and maybe this is undermined because you just said you didn't think it was Yara, but I thought it was a really jarring way to be like, oh shit.

No, no, no, no. I knew it like it was her, but I knew it like it wasn't her, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I get that too. Uh, but I thought that was really clever. Then of course, downfall of any movie, they really drag it out, and they're just like, Yara, Yara, what? What? So but then that scene is also the first time that you I I like that this movie repeatedly shows us not just what everything looks like from Jay's perspective, but how everything looks from everyone else's perspective. And I think that's a little bit scarier that they're all trying to help their friend, but they're helpless in the end. And this, and at the pool scene in the end, you know, her hair is lifted up by invisible means, and then Paul smacks it with a chair and is thrown across the beach.

Like, there I think is fear in having to confront this unknown thing that you don't you don't know how to solve or kill. And uh, I thought that was really cool and clever too. I think one of the biggest dangers here is shooting a gun at something invisible because I really thought that someone was gonna die. And that happens multiple times. Yeah. And let's go ahead and jump, jump, jump. We're gonna return to the hot guy's death. Mommy, am I right? To the very end, when they enclose it in this public pool to supposedly try and electrocute it. You may be thinking, stupid. And I would say that the director of this movie agrees. He said that this whole scene was kind of constructed as an homage to people saying that characters in horror movies make stupid decisions.

However, he's got a very um, I think, intelligent outlook on it because another thing that I think this movie is really about, that you know, a lot of movies are about, Yan is coming of age. We have so many characters having sex, which is the whole kind of premise of the movie. And on top of that, we have so many characters talking about sex and having weird encounters with sex. Like, you know, you mentioned earlier the hot guy kind of giving Yara the up and down in a moment that wasn't sexual, but was definitely like pointing out that he was looking at her. And then in that same scene, Paul finding all the porn magazines on Hugh Jeff's floor, and there are just so many confrontations with sex that this movie, I think, is really trying to hit on the transition between when you're young and you don't know anything, and then suddenly you're thrust into having to know everything and make all of these decisions and choices that will affect you for the rest of your life.

I think there's a reason that besides that one scene at the beach house, it is always an older person than the characters. And when it was that scene in the beach house, you may not have noticed, because I didn't notice until this time, it is the same kid that was peeping on Jay in the pool, which was, you know, kind of maybe not sexual, but you know, the boys peeping on girls in the pool, it is sexual. And then there's this scene where they're driving through Detroit, the music is slapping, and they're crossing apparently this Central Street in Detroit. I don't know anything about Detroit, where there is like a very noticeable transition from the kind of rich suburbs to the run-down city, and they have to kind of confront everything on their own.

And you'll notice there's also a big lack of adults' presence in this movie. And I think that it all kind of feeds into this thought that these kids, you know, they're at the end of their high school career, they're moving into adulthood, and they're kind of just like put out into their own means to have to figure out how to confront all of this like burgeoning adulthood that's being set upon them, even death. And that feeds into the scene that you just mentioned where hot guy, I can't remember his name, his name is Greg, where Greg is killed, and his then when Jay walks in, it is his mom like humping him on the floor, and yeah, like you said, fluids everywhere.

And I think that kind of when you first figure out what sex is, I would assume that we're all young and probably figuring that out before any sort of actual knowledge is being imparted on us. Kind of the first interaction that you would have with sex, parents are so linked to life and what gave you life, and what is life but sex? And then in this movie, what is sex but death? Sorry. What is the point you're trying to make about parents and sex here? Well, riddle me this, Caroline. How was your very life created? Your parents. Yeah, but like when you're like growing up and like figuring stuff out, I like I didn't really think about that too much.

But I think that the like main like presence in your life that would be maybe behind closed doors, but sexual would be your parents, because I think that, you know, if you look at classical philosophy and there's you know like Oedipus Incest Yeah, thoughts, it's all about being obsessed with your parents. And you know, it's not Greg's dad that kills him, it's his mom. Because there's this philosophical link between a son and his mom or a daughter and her dad that is ultimately, at least by these trains of thought, sexual. So I think that all of this is feeding into that, especially no coincidence, that I think the most bizarre scene of the movie is Greg being s very sexually killed by his mother.

It's not pointed out very well, but ultimately the it that finds uh Jay in the pool is her father as well. So, and her father is missing from her life. We only see her mom in non-it form, and it seems that Greg's father is missing. I think that all of these kind of gender roles are feeding into this idea of adulthood being very intertwined with sex, and then all of that kind of feeding into these mortality death fears. I think that similarly to onions, or perhaps even ogres, this movie layers. So the movie ultimately ends with Jay very hesitantly and resistantly having a little quick fuck session with Paul, and um then the movie ending with them holding hands, walking down the sidewalk with an it walking behind them, kind of signaling that they'll never escape it, and neither shall we.

And it's all kind of summed up when we see Yara in the hospital bed, just moments before that final image, and she's been reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky the whole movie. And she says this one quote from it that reads When there's torture, there's pain in wounds, physical agony, and all this distracts the mind from mental suffering, so that one is tormented by the wounds until the moment of death. And the most terrible agony may not be in the wounds themselves, but in knowing for certain that within an hour, then within ten minutes, then within half a minute, now, at this very instant, your soul will leave your body, and you will no longer be a person.

And that is certain. The worst thing is that it is certain. The worst thing is that it is certain. And you know what it does follows. And that is thoughts for your existential crisis while in quarantine, guys. Exactly. That's how Sue sees it. And I think that really full circle moment there, I I don't know, as much as I thought the movie wasn't as fun as I remembered it being, now talking it through, like it's very smart. I think that this movie has stuff to say. Yeah. Uh, and then, you know, popular topic for this um podcast, and again, not to shit on anyone, but this movie is very counter popular thought. You know, we're in America founded on Christian beliefs, and everyone's spending their whole life trying to think that maybe after life when we die.

Maybe there's something waiting for us and there's hope. And this movie says, Yeah, right. Once you die, you should be afraid because your whole life that's following you, and you know it's waiting for you? Big fat nothing. How fun. Enjoy quarantine. Oh god. Any other thoughts? I think that was a mic drop. So what would you say? It follows. Heard of it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What would you say? Most memorable murder from It Follows. I think there's a pretty obvious answer here. Yep. Getting killed by your mom. I was really quite stunned by the first gal on the beach, so I'm gonna go with that. Wow. You know, I think that she is a very close second, and I'm gonna go with Ian and say, Moms, stay away.

Because that scene really uh scared me. Now on a scary scale, one to five, how would you rate it follows? Two. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a three. I feel like it was just more creepy than scary. Yeah, I think I'm gonna agree with you. I'm gonna give it a three. I think The Witch scared me a little bit more, but similarly to The Witch, it's one where I watch it and I'm not jumping out of my seat while I watch it, except I told you earlier I did in the theater. But I think it's one that you think about a little bit later and you're like, oh shit, it does follow. I think it's pretty spooky too.

Now, would you give it follows a smash or a slash? I feel like this movie is pretty sexual, so I have to give it a smash. Ooh, now like how hard of a smash? Like mom and son smash or like regular smash? Hmm. Like a a good back arch in a hospital bed smash. Ooh. Oh my god, I didn't even talk about all of her family and friends. Must have been somewhere nearby. Was she just like, excuse me, everyone, we need a moment. Wink wink. Freaking hooked up to the IV drip. Like, girl. I know. I wish in it in a movie that was maybe just like a centimeter better than this one. Maybe we could have had them having sex and then kind of the heart monitor in the back being like, beep, beep.

I'm so glad he used the metric system. Agreed. Alright. Uh, Ian, did you smash or slash? Uh hardcore slash. Oh. Maybe one of my least favorite movies of all time. Wow. I'd just like to preface this that Ian is mad that I didn't make cookies tonight. So that's what it might be well. I'm not mad. He's not happy about the movie. Uh, I give this movie a smash. Like Mama and Son Hard Smash. Hell yeah. Fluids everywhere. Woohoo! What would you say is your favorite scary movie? The Lodge. My favorite scary movie is The Lodge. Wow. And then you know what? Breaking news, because Caroline and Ian, you have no fucking idea, but my favorite scary movie.

What was the what scream for? No! My favorite scary movie, Reanimator. Ooh. So we're behind the times. Yeah, you guys are gonna have to go catch up on your what's your favorite scary movie episodes. Alright. Interesting. You guys, what a pleasure. Next time on What's Your Favorite Scary Movie, I'm afraid that I've taken a knife to both of your throats because you're back in the uh the old coffins, ready for uh a return soon. Scarymoviepod or patreon.com slash scary moviepod. I will have another solo episode on one of my personal favorites, Drag Me to Hell. RuPaul's Drag Me to Hell. Until next time, when we're watching Drag Me to Hell, one of my favorite horror movies of all time, you can head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and a review.

I believe we have we've actually had quite the flow of new ones. So speaking of flow, talk about that blood flowing into that pool. At the end of it follows Let Me Let the Right One In style. Also, like throw back periods, life, sexuality, adulthood. Come on. This review is by Evie Queen, who said, addicted. I'm a horror movie fanatic, so I started this podcast during a road trip from Texas to Georgia, and it is my favorite podcast. Um, Evie Queen went to school in Texas, and I grew up in Georgia, so that's a great road trip to make. And I'm from Texas, so really I think she was just tuning in to Parker and Caroline in love.

Wow, she was just meant for this podcast. Well, Evie also said I've tried other horror podcasts, but they don't bring the same charm and fun to it as Parker, Caroline, and Ian. I love the different and new perspectives they bring to the movies. Five stars. Five stars for you, Evie. That's awesome. All right, you guys, what a pleasure it's been. Until next time, you can find me, Parker Heron, on Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd, and the slasher app at Parker Del Rey. My name is Caroline. You can find me on Instagram at Caro Manifesto. My name's Ian. You can find me on YouTube. Caroline, are you done with Twitter? Yeah, well, I made a call out to all of our fans to engage with me a little bit more on Twitter, and no one has, so I've forgotten about it.

Wow. Shots fired. Yeah. And that was, you know, at the beginning of the year I said I want to spend more time on Twitter. And I haven't. I guess now find Caroline on TikTok. Send her some TikToks. Oh man. I love TikTok, but I'm not making videos. I just observe. Yeah, so tweet Caroline, your favorite TikToks. Ooh, yeah, that's a good idea. All right. Well, you can find all three of us, the whole Scary MoviePod crew, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, at ScarymoviePod. And even you could find us every other week. And by that I mean twice a month. Maybe not uh necessarily every other week, but twice a month on patreon.com slash scary moviepod when we're posting brand new episodes all the time and even newsletters that are pretty hot that come out on the first of every month.

So if you're sick of just hearing me, you can head there and hear Caroline and Ian too. You can also email us all of your thoughts and opinions and feedback at scarymoviepod at gmail.com. And you can find our calendar and reviews at scarymoviepod.com. All right, you guys. Keep an eye out your window because I'm going to be there following you. Naked. Oh. You will standing on your roof. Oh, hey daddy. Just standing there all out. Oh, yeah. Wiener just blowing in the wind. Bye.