Every since It Follows (read our review) became a cult phenomenon (deserving it way more than The Babadook), there have been a plethora of interviews with director David Robert Mitchell about the film’s central plot, the mythology of “It”, and the perplexing (because of the kids’ moronic plan) unconventional finale.
And with talk of a sequel already underway, Mitchell continues his press tour that has become increasingly interesting.
In a new interview with Yahoo!, Mitchell makes a huge reveal that the mythology behind the creature is that created by the kids within the context of the movie. This means that the rules could and probably will be different.
“The only rules that we hear are rules that we’re told by a character within the film, who has access to limited information,” he explained. “If you look at the film enough, you can start to understand how he may be figuring these things out and how he has gotten the information that he has. But you also have to understand that they’re not rules on a stone’s tablet; they’re a character’s best guess about what’s happening to them. So, you know, they seem mostly right. But for me, that’s kind of fun, in that there might be some gaps in information, some things that he doesn’t understand and neither do we.”
The more I read about It Follows, and the more Mitchell talks about his internal process on the characters and the creature, the more excited I get. He’s either grasping at straws to fill plot holes, or he’s continuing the further the genre with his out-of-the-box thinking, which I believe to be true.
Anyways, he really gets into the thick of it during a reddit AMA that took place a week ago. One reader asked how Hugh’s character in It Follows knows so much about the origin of the infection curse.
“This suggests a much larger backstory within Hugh’s life.
We can only imagine the circumstances that led to Hugh discovering this.
The film offers a few clues.”
Mitchell then continues in revealing more on his perception of “It” from its appearance to whether or not It can run.
“For one, looking like normal people, it has the ability to approach the character without them being aware that it’s the monster. Also, it’s the way that the monster uses the human figure to hurt or disturb the characters.”
“I think most of the time It’s always walking,” Mitchell adds also revealing it can do pretty much whatever it wants. “But It can choose to move in ways that might hurt or affect the person it’s following.”
Does this mean it can walk through water? Now we’re getting creepy: “It could certainly cross the ocean. I imagine that it could get on a boat or a plane. Or it could move through the water, if it chose to.”
There’s so much more about It Follows at the aforementioned link, but it really is exciting to visualize the various circumstances we could see the creature in. I want to see it chilling on a plane, only I would wonder how it got a ticket…
