Krishna
This was shown in the Toronto International Film Festival and created so much buzz that it was brought back to mainstream cinemas later in the year. Well sort of, because at least in Toronto, it was running in only one theatre downtown.
The story is interesting. Let me tell you what it is, and then we can review what my impressions of the movie is.
It has the feel of a movie aimed at teenage and twenties audience because it is about a bunch of girls & boys still in school. The main character is a young girl named Jay Height who has sex in a car with her new boyfriend Hugh. There is a scene where he sees a girl standing at the entrance that Jay cannot seem to see. After sex he uses chloroform to make her unconscious and she finds herself tied to a chair when she wakes up. (No, this is not another Fifty Shades of Grey, far from it.)
He explains that there is an entity (called “IT” ) that comes after people and kills them. The only way to escape is to have sex with someone after which the entity will follow the person whom you had sex with. It apparently can follow only one person for the some reason. It also always comes as a person – any person whom you have or have not met. (We can save on special effects if the entity appears to be a normal person, right?). It can only come walking – always.
But there is a catch. (‘Another one?’ you go). If the person whom you had sex with is killed by it, it follows the person up the chain – you – and comes after you. So you better have sex with someone else to deflect it again. Another “feature” is that, while no one else can see it, you can, if you are up the chain. From a technical point of view, you are in a tree structure, really, and it keeps destroying the nodes from leaves upwards towards the root. (Sorry could not resist the reference).
Well, Hugh explains it and lo and behold, a naked woman is coming straight at Jay. Hugh releases her and runs off and she runs in panic. Thus starts a game of chase, where she is running from the entity which everyone cannot see but Jay can.
Her sister Kelly, friend Yara, and another friend who has had a lifelong crush on her, Paul, decide to help her. So does a neighbouring kid called Greg. He “bravely” offers to have sex with Jay, so that he will be in the path of the entity, and Jay accepts, much to the dismay of Paul.
When Greg gets killed, Jay is in the sights of IT again and desperately the four kids decide to confront and kill it. What happens next is till the end of the movie.
There are certainly some interesting moments. The scene in the beach where they cannot see IT (who comes as Kelly in Jay’s sights) and where the real Kelly comes and swings a chair at where it is supposed to be and breaks the chair apparently in mid-air is interesting.
So is the climax scene where they realize that except Jay no one can see IT and how they solve that problem is also interesting.
But you can pick barn door sized holes in the plot. For instance, Hugh says that a girl gave it to him (and implies that he had sex with someone else to get rid of IT and she must have died, which is why he saw the girl in the theatre and had to run and have sex with Jay). He does not know who that girl is, he says. Then how does he know all about IT? Did she leave a manual when she left?
Also, they shoot IT right through the heart in the beach scene and it seems to just get up and come after them. Yet, in another scene it is implied that the thing is dead. Huh? Silver bullets, like you do for werewolves?
This can get complicated with all the promiscuity implied in the movie, how can IT keep track of who is the next victim if there are parallel leaves in the tree structure?
And there is an unnecessary references to incest where the parents come naked (or IT comes naked as parents, and in one case, after killing the child, seems to want to have sex with the child). Why? It was not even relevant to the main plot!
Why should it walk? How can you recognize IT if it comes as a relative? What the heck is going on here?
And, to top it all off, the dialogs and acting are all mediocre. The movie does not burn into your mind.
Worth watching if you like kiddie targeted movies. Definitely not scary.
The premise is nice but the movie gets only a 5/10
– – Krishna