Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.5

It Follows Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson February 11, 2021

UK-based video label Icon Productions' release of David Robert Mitchell's IT FOLLOWS (2014) contains an exclusive audio commentary, an original theatrical UK trailer, a brief interview with Disasterpeace, and an image gallery. In English, with optional English SDH for the main feature. Region-B locked.

David Robert Mitchell has quietly become one of the leading voices for American independent film. Mitchell took the long road to achieve the recognition and critical success he's received since directing his first feature The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010). Writer Julie Hinds profiled the native of Clawson, Michigan for a feature that ran in the Detroit Free Press a decade ago when Myth received a limited US release. Mitchell attended nearby Wayne State University where he produced a slew of short films. He then attended Florida State University where he earned an MFA in Film Production. Mitchell moved to Los Angeles in 2002 during which he edited TV spots and trailers for a movie marketing company as his day job. He spent evenings writing screenplays and developing film projects. Though he wrote the first draft of Myth in '02, it lingered in "Development Hell" for years. Mitchell spent four years making Myth until finally completing it in '10. He was 35.

Myth weaves together four interlocking stories and subplots of Detroit teenagers on their last day of summer. The movie does a commendable job of capturing naturalistic moments of the teens' lives in an uncontrived manner and also steering away from genre clichés. Flash-forward four years to 2014 and It Follows. Mitchell's growth and maturation is demonstrated by leaps and bounds. If Myth was Mitchell's post-MFA film, It Follows is his post-doc. Mitchell exhibits a finer grasp of cinematography, editing, music, and direction of actors.

Mitchell expertly navigates the conventions of the horror film from the opening shot of a female teen fleeing her house. Annie (Bailey Spry) stands and backpedals in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, unsure what to do or where to go. She races back into her home, grabs her purse, and takes off in a car. It's no random coincidence that her name is Annie given that Annie (Nancy Loomis) is also one of the first victims in Halloween (1978), a horror classic that It Follows patterns itself after but doesn't slavishly imitate. Annie is alone on the beach talking on her cell phone (the only one shown in It Follows, an indication of its rather timeless narrative). She tries to explain her dilemma to a friend and Mitchell's editor Julio Perez IV makes a jump cut to her fate. In the vicinity of the same Detroit neighborhood, we're introduced to Jay Height (Maika Monroe), the film's central protagonist. She's on a date with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) at the Redford cinema art theater (Mitchell's nod to his independent film roots). Jay and Hugh have sex in the latter's car before traversing to a derelict warehouse. Before long, Jay is unconscious and finds herself tied up. She can't understand why Hugh's done this to her but he's convinced that a sleep demon has been passed on to her. As "evidence" of this transference, they see a nearly unclothed zombie-like figure approach them.

In the story world of It Follows, the "D" in STD signifies Demon. Depending on who's infected, the Demon is either visible or not able to be seen. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis shifts the perspective of what we're seeing and by whom. It's not often clear who's cursed and whether or not we're seeing the follower from his or her point of view.

While It Follows is heavily inspired by Halloween, the other film it shares a major commonality with is William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist III (1990), which is based on Blatty's 1983 novel The Legion. In that work, the Gemini Killer is supposedly dead but his spirit seems to "pass on" to others, who continue his dirty deeds. There are specific scenes and individual shots in It Follows that remind me of The Exorcist III. Both probe the origins of an evil thing and suggest that evil has not died and will carry on.

It Follows Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Icon's Blu-ray release of It Follows comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. (Early pressings may have come with a slipcover.) This transfer appears to use the same one my colleague Martin Liebman reviewed five years ago for the Anchor Bay BD-50, which I also own. The image is very clean and sharp. The darker and grayer scenes have largely been drained of color. On the other hand, sunlit and daytime autumnal scenes are bright and accented with solidly delineated hues (see Screenshot #s 2, 3, 14, and 15). At other times, the image has a chlorine blue. (Check out the interior in Jay's bedroom in #11 and the pool scenes in #s 10, 12, and 13.) At least one viewer who watched the AB noticed aliasing on houses and static objects during panning shots and some shimmer on shutters and tree foliage. I spotted no such anomalies, either with the image frozen or in-motion, on the Icon. I've watched both the AB and Icon discs on different viewing displays and if I were to pick one over the other that I preferred, I'd go with the Icon. My video score is 4.75/5.00. Icon has encoded the main feature at an average video bitrate of 30000 kbps.

The 100-minute film comes with twelve scene selections.

It Follows Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Icon supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (4083 kbps, 24-bit) and an LPCM 2.0 Stereo downmix (2304 kbps, 24-bit). The uncompressed 5.1 mix largely replicates the one on the AB. From Marty's original review: "Low end support is quality, too, deep and well defined without falling victim to unwanted rattling or other unkempt results. The track also features several well defined large support effects. Several blasts from a revolver are crisp and authoritative, perhaps not quite so deep as they could have been -- particularly a couple of shots fired inside -- but there's nonetheless a nice weighty feel to them. Driving rains and heavy thunder are likewise naturally replicated and nicely fill out the entire stage. Lighter effects such as natural environmental ambiance -- chirping birds and singing insects -- are likewise well defined and precisely scattered throughout the listening area. Dialogue delivery is clear and center-focused with a nice little bit of reverberation in chapter three." My ears reinforce his auditory observations.

The original score by Disasterpeace is tremendously effective in conveying the mood of scenes and the internal/external states of the characters. The music delivers the sonic goods on the 5.1 track. Disasterpeace listened to a temp track prepared by Mitchell that featured the music of John Carpenter, John Cage, and Krzysztof Penderecki. While the score bears the apparent influences of those composers, its electronic sounds as crafted by Disasterpeace are original in their own unique ways.

Icon includes optional (white) English SDH for the central feature.

It Follows Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• EXCLUSIVE Audio Commentary by Danny Leigh ("Film 2015") and Mark Jancovich (Professor of Film and TV Studies at University of East Anglia) - Leigh is a journalist and critic while Jancovich is a university lecturer. The pair engage in a lively discussion with few gaps. They explain how It Follows differs from contemporary horror films as well as how it's similar to Halloween and how it diverges from the Carpenter movie in the story and plot lines. They analyze the themes of It Follows, character motives, and underlying meaning of certain scenes. The track is encoded in LPCM 2.0 Stereo (2304 kbps, 24-bit). Leigh and Jancovich's voices are always crisp and intelligible. An outstanding counterpart to the group commentary on the Anchor Bay. In English, not subtitled.

• Interview with Film Composer Disasterpeace (4:54, 1080p) - a brief chat with Rich Vreeland, who explains how he got started composing music for video games, which later grew into writing for cartoons and films. He talks about the musical influences for It Follows, his ideas for this score, and how he scored specific scenes in the film. This short featurette has also appeared on the American, Australian, and German editions. In English, not subtitled.

• EXCLUSIVE Theatrical Trailer (1:42, 1080p) - a UK trailer for It Follows presented in 2.35:1 with DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround (3697 kbps, 24-bit). The trailer is encoded at an unusually high average bitrate (33009 kbps).

• EXCLUSIVE Gallery (1:07, 1080p) - this consists of a painted poster for It Follows. The camera zooms in and out of the full sheet; it also dissolves into close-ups of individual parts of the sketching. It's accompanied by a cue from Disasterpeace.

• Bonus Trailer (2:39, 1080p) - a UK trailer for the Icon-distributed Demonic (2015) that plays right after the disc loads.

It Follows Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It Follows is one of the most significant horror films to be released this millennium. I have the MUBI (UK) BD-50 of Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake (2018) and cannot wait to watch it. Icon's release of It Follows boasts an outstanding transfer and robust 5.1 lossless track. I consider its picture quality to be ahead of the Anchor Bay by small margins. Icon's inclusion of an exclusive commentary track makes this a highly appealing package. (I own the AB SteelBook with the different "group" commentary.) It seems unlikely that It Follows will be released on UHD any time soon. RECOMMENDED MOST HIGHLY.