After sleeping with her new boyfriend, a college student named Jay learns he has passed something on to her. A shape-shifting figure that only she can see will walk toward her, slowly and without stopping, until it kills her or she passes it to someone else. Watch it for how the camera makes you search every background.
It Follows is a 2015 horror and mystery film directed by David Robert Mitchell. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (2 cinematography, 1 narrative, 1 psychology and 1 sound), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Mulholland Drive uses several of the same techniques.
Turning the camera in a full circle from 1 fixed spot. Each pass shows the whole space again, so you scan it for anything that has moved closer.
How this film uses it
Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis turns the camera slowly around a school while Jay and Greg look for answers. Most of the frame is normal kids and hallways. Somewhere in the distance, a figure is walking straight toward them, and you only spot it if you look.
Where to see it
The visit to Hugh's old high school. Jay and Greg go looking for the boy who passed the curse on, and the camera spins slowly around the school as a figure approaches.
Giving the threat a short list of clear rules early in the film. You then use those rules to predict danger, which keeps you checking every scene alongside the characters.
How this film uses it
The rules are simple: it walks, it never stops, it can look like anyone and only the cursed can see it. Once you know them, any person walking toward the camera becomes a possible threat. The film barely needs jump scares after that.
Where to see it
Hugh's explanation. Hugh drugs Jay, ties her to a wheelchair in an abandoned building and makes her watch the first figure walk toward them while he explains the rules.
Making something familiar look slightly wrong, like an ordinary house or face that feels off. The dread comes from that strangeness, with no obvious threat on screen.
How this film uses it
The followers look like ordinary people, but something is off. They walk too steadily, stare straight ahead and ignore everything around them. Once you know what to look for, they stand out in every crowd.
Where to see it
The college classroom. Jay looks out the window and sees an old woman in a hospital gown walking across the campus straight toward her. Nobody else notices.
Mixing cars, technology and decor from different decades so the film can't be pinned to 1 year. The world feels like a memory or a dream.
How this film uses it
The TVs are old sets showing black-and-white movies, and the cars come from several eras. Yara reads on an e-reader that is really a 1960s shell-shaped makeup compact. Mitchell said he didn't want any object that would date the film. Like a nightmare, it seems to happen in no particular time.
Where to see it
Yara's e-reader. Throughout the film, Yara reads Dostoevsky's The Idiot aloud to her friends from the shell-shaped device.
Keeping a threat or character mostly out of view and suggesting it through sound, movement at the edge of the frame and other people's reactions. Your imagination makes it scarier than anything shown.
How this film uses it
The film trains you to watch the edges of the frame. Even in calm moments, you check the background for someone walking. The last shot plays on that habit and leaves you unsure whether anything is there.
Where to see it
The ending. Jay and Paul walk down a suburban street holding hands, and far behind them, a figure follows.
Questions
It Follows: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does It Follows use?
CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in It Follows (2015): 360-Degree Pan, Rule-Based Threat, Uncanny, Timeless Setting and Off-Screen Presence.
Who directed It Follows?
David Robert Mitchell directed It Follows, released in 2015.
What films are similar to It Follows?
Films that share techniques with It Follows include Mulholland Drive (2001), Alien (1979), The Witch (2015), I Saw the TV Glow (2024).
