David Robert Mitchell's debut feature, the 2010 suburban teen comedy-drama The Myth of the American Sleepover won praise at the Cannes Film Festival, and more importantly, secured distribution.
In his new film, It Follows, Mitchell returns to a similar setting, an unnamed leafy neighborhood that is akin to his native Detroit. Like The Myth of the American Sleepover, It Follows focuses on a group of teenagers almost devoid of overbearing authority figures, though unlike Myth, It Follows is a cerebral thriller. The film stars Maika Monroe as Jay, a high-school girl taken with a good-looking guy she has an innocent sexual tryst with one evening. The encounter, however, unleashes a plague of nightmare proportions.
The sexual act passes on a curse—a stalking monster—that had been given to him via an earlier sexual encounter. Seen only by the cursed, the monster manifests itself as a woman, an older man, a boy, or, who knows? Anything out there could be that monster and, as the new target, Jay must always be vigilant. Feeling badly for giving her the curse, the boy warns her, “They're slow, but they're smart.” The only possible way to rid herself of the curse is to pass it along to someone else through sex.
Enter her close-knit group of friends who come to her aid. One of them, Greg, a neighbor with a swagger and perhaps an ego to match, offers to hook up with her, if perhaps to allay her fears, and thereby become the focus of the monster's wrath. If he dies, however, the stalking reverts to Jay and so on down the line… and the cursed are being knocked off one by one.
David Robert Mitchell sat down with FilmLinc to talk about how the roles of sex, teenage angst, and the suburbs propel It Follows. He also shares that a recurring nightmare formed the basis of the story, which he wrote in just 10 days. It Follows begins its theatrical run at the Film Society starting Friday.
FilmLinc: While watching It Follows, there were two things that struck me. One was that it reminded me of a recurring nightmare I was having some years ago, though the horror of it was not at all similar to your film. And the other thing it reminded me of—and maybe this is odd—is Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter because of the fallout from a sexual encounter. Though, again, the stories are very different…
David Robert Mitchell: Some of that is similar actually. The movie came from a recurring nightmare I would have when I was really young. In it, I was followed by what I knew to be a monster and it looked like different people, but only I could see it and it was very slow. It was always coming for me and the people around me wouldn't react. In the dream, I would be eating dinner with my family and this thing would come in through the door and walk slowly toward me and nobody would notice. I'd run out of the room and it would continue to run toward me. It wasn't difficult to get away from, but there was a feeling it was always there.
I stopped having the nightmare [eventually], but I always remembered it. I've talked about it to people who said it was an anxiety dream. So I always had wanted to make a horror film. It remained in the back of my mind and I just started adding to [the story] later. As an adult I added the sexual component and other aspects of the story, but the core of it stemmed from that nightmare.
FL: I'd imagine that It Follows is seen as being a metaphor for STDs.
DRM: Sure, for me that was definitely there, but there were many other things I was thinking about in terms of the subtext of the film. But that was one as I wrote it. I thought, “Some will see it this way,” but [STDs] is one of several…
FL: Is it fair to say that the film plays off of America's puritanical views about sex?
DRM: Yeah, I've had some people say to me that the film itself has a puritanical message, which I personally would disagree with. It was not my goal to suggest that. But I do think it's a natural byproduct of making films in America. A puritanical view of sex is a part of America's history, and even despite myself, some of that comes through in the characters because of how we see the world. Some people who've seen the film say that its message is “You should be very careful with sex” or 'You should avoid sex.” Again, I don't mind if someone wants to see it that way, but I think it's deeper than that, at least according to my read on the film. It's definitely about sex, but it's more representative of other things in terms of life in general.
FL: As you've teased, the creatures themselves change. The man who basically unleashes this curse on Jay warns her that “they're slow, but they're smart.” It was interesting how some would manifest as old, others young, some hideous, and others maybe a bit hot…
DRM: I liked the idea that if you don't know what form something is going to be in, so you're just looking out for anything approaching you, it makes the whole world terrifying. So literally, as we were filming, even the simplest shots as we set them up, even when there's a moment that's not exactly planned—like an extra walking by—that has the potential to frighten or induce anxiety. That sort of thing starts to work for you…
FL: Yeah, with It Follows, I found myself looking into the background much more than any recent movie that I can recall.
DRM: Yes, that was the plan of the film. We wanted to give that sense that you're in the space with them and you have to look out for them. You want to spot this thing she's looking for.
FL: Okay, so aside from the monsters, the male characters that are close to Jay in one form or another were interesting. They were three quite different gentlemen. The first one is scared and just wants to get rid of this damn thing…
DRM: Yeah the [first guy] is the biggest asshole, but there's something genuine about him. It comes from just being afraid and there's weakness there. And there's [Jay's loyal friend] Paul [Keir Gilchrist]. I think he's a strong person, but has an awkwardness to him. And Greg [Daniel Zovatto] the neighbor, I think, genuinely cares for Jay, but he sees things a bit differently.
FL: I felt like Greg was the alpha male among them.
DRM: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. In my film world things are a little more subdued, but he'd be the alpha male, yes. In terms of writing their characters, I was interested in creating this interesting mix in this little gang.
FL: Detroit is never mentioned directly as the setting, but it becomes rather apparent. The Myth of the American Sleepover is set there as well. I felt like the setting of the film—the sleepy, leafy suburbs the kids lived in, mixed with the more downtrodden areas of the inner city—propelled the mood of the story.
DRM: The truth is, there are main parts of the city that are wonderful. But those other parts certainly exist. It's a city I very much care about and there's a tendency to only pay attention to the [rough] areas. I hope I'm not necessarily contributing to that because it is a great place. The poverty of that area, though, is real.
FL: Did you toy with putting the kids in It Follows in a different environment?
DRM: It's where I grew up. Even when writing the script I had in mind the separation that exists between the suburbs and the city. [Detroit] is important to me, and it's part of those layers of subtext I wanted in the story . But without making enormous social commentary, I wanted to show that separation in the movie and how these kids are experiencing it [in a real way] for the first time.
FL: When going into Detroit, and also at home, there is an absence of parental figures. When Jay has her initial experience with the monster after the “curse” was passed on to her, the group calls the police, but after that, authority figures were mostly absent too. I did like how the kids would contemplate calling the police, so there isn't that awkward thing when, as an audience member, you're thinking, “What about the police…?” They address that to a degree. But for the most part, these kids are facing this situation alone.
DRM: There are definitely tonal similarities with this and the first film and that was a starting point when I wrote and put this together. I had just finished Myth and I had the horror film idea and thought, “Oh, it would be fun to take some of the characters from Myth and throw them into a nightmare and see how they'll react. That's where it came from. So I did some similar things I did with Myth in It Follows, but for different effect. In Myth, you don't see many adults. They're either on the edge of the frame or not there at all. It was about creating a magical space for these kids outside the adult world. With It Follows, it's about isolating the characters and making a more frightening and threatening world. It's a bit more like a dream or, again, a nightmare. There are certainly elements in the film that don't quite fit with reality or feel just quite right.
FL: So you've done comedy and now horror. What other areas would you like to explore going forward?
DRM: Oh, I have lots of stories. I have another drama and there's a mystery-adventure. I also have a strange but kind of fun detective story I want to do. I like science fiction. I'd like to do another horror, but probably not right away. When you're doing it, your headspace is in it and you think, “I've just lived there.”
