With David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows starting its wide release today, many of you are going to want to bookmark this article to revisit once you’ve seen it. Until then, it should be avoided as it contains major spoilers.
The finale to It Follows is both controversial and unconventional. In fact, it’s so bizarre that it has audiences taking sides.
For those of you who need an explanation as to why the protagonists in the film are so fucking stupid, here’s your answer. They’re kids.
Mitchell speaks to Vulture about the final sequence in which the kids surround a pool with electrical devices in hopes of electrocuting? the creature. It’s a really stupid plan, but Mitchell’s reasoning behind it is completely sound.
“It’s the stupidest plan ever! [Laughs.] It’s a kid-movie plan, it’s something that Scooby-Doo and the gang might think of, and that was sort of the point. What would you do if you were confronted by a monster and found yourself trapped within a nightmare? Ultimately, you have to resort to some way of fighting it that’s accessible to you in the physical world, and that’s not really going to cut it. We kind of avoid any kind of traditional setup for that sequence, because in more traditional horror films, there might be a clue that would lead them to figure out a way to destroy this monster. I intentionally avoided placing those. Instead, they do their best to accomplish something, and we witness its failure. It’s probably a very non-conventional way of approaching the third-act confrontation, but we thought it was a fun way to deal with it.
In my review I speak to the fact that Mitchell’s It Follows furthers the genre. And this is exactly what I meant by that. The movie is completely refreshing in every aspect, including the bizarre, buzz-worthy finale that will end in serious theater-lobby discussions.
After you’ve seen the movie, what are your thoughts about the “Scooby-Doo gang’s” failed plan? Does this add a sense a realism to the movie or take you completely out of it?