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Entertainment

30th Jul 2017

One of the best horror movies of the 21st century is now on Netflix

Are you brave enough to watch this?

Paul Moore

97% on Rotten Tomatoes and hailed as a modern classic.

In terms of modern horror, it’s impossible to watch certain features without seeing the seismic influences of directors like John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg and the late George Romero.

Given the fact that these men created some of the greatest horror films of all-time, certain thematic and visual nods are starting to reappear in the genre.

Films like The Void, You’re Next, Don’t Breathe, Get Out and It Comes At Night all proudly boast their cinematic influences, but another feature which Quentin Tarantino has described as “the best premise I’ve seen in a horror film in a long, long, long time”, has topped them all in terms of critical adulation and love.

It Follows revolves around 19-year-old Jay (Maika Monroe), whose life takes a sinister turn after a seemingly innocent sexual encounter. After making ‘the beast with two backs’, she finds herself plagued by strange visions and the inescapable sense that someone, or something, is following her.

Faced with this burden, Jay and her teenage friends must find a way to escape the horrors that seem to be only a few steps behind.

By toying with genre conventions and adopting a post-Scream knowingness, David Robert Mitchell has created a film that’s almost universally adored by critics everywhere – it currently rates 97% on Rotten Tomatoes from 225 reviews.

In their review, The Guardian stated:

“[I] don’t think I have ever had a nightmare quite as scary as this film – a modern classic of fear to be compared to something by a young Carpenter or De Palma.”

“A first-rate horror movie, It Follows adds a new monster to the pantheon,” is how Empire described it while The Telegraph praised it as a “tender, remarkably ingenious and scalp-pricklingly scary.”

Horror fans are in for a treat.