It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)

[Irish]

I was really happy It Follows avoided this and had the kids try to determine the rules on their own.

Huh? Jeff fufills the role of wise survivor. He's the exposition dump character. He explains the rules twice. Once at the first act climax when he abducts Jay and then again after the kids find him during the second act.

This is part of what I was talking about--- the film, and by extension, its characters-- is so uninterested in its own mythology that it explains the rules twice. The second time, it adds information that the characters would have no way of knowing (that, if Jay dies, the creature will re-seek out Jeff and work its way "back up the chain"). Everybody is so braindead that nobody asks the point blank, obvious questions: What is this thing, where did it come from, how do we stop it?

They make guesses based on no information and arbitrary circumstance.

[Pop Trash]

They make guesses based on no information and arbitrary circumstance.

Teenagers are dumb.

[transmogrifier]

Huh? Jeff fufills the role of wise survivor. He's the exposition dump character. He explains the rules twice. Once at the first act climax when he abducts Jay and then again after the kids find him during the second act.

This is part of what I was talking about--- the film, and by extension, its characters-- is so uninterested in its own mythology that it explains the rules twice. The second time, it adds information that the characters would have no way of knowing (that, if Jay dies, the creature will re-seek out Jeff and work its way "back up the chain"). Everybody is so braindead that nobody asks the point blank, obvious questions: What is this thing, where did it come from, how do we stop it?

They make guesses based on no information and arbitrary circumstance.

No offense, but you seem to have a habit of taking a genre and a premise, sketching your own idea of what a "proper" narrative would do, and then moan if the film has no interest in following your expectations of what constitutes a "proper" narrative. Plus you appear to suffer from a lack of imagination when it suits your criticisms - i.e., you complain that Jeff would have no way of knowing that IT works its way backwards, when it wouldn't take much insight on Jeff's part to notice that having sex with a girl made IT disappear, until that girl turned up horribly murdered, and then suddenly IT was back again. Pretty straightforward, no?

And why expand on the mythology to include things that the kids could not inductively figure out for themselves? Remember, they do investigate - they find Jeff after all! - until that ends up being a dead-end (one-night stand), and then it is back to survival mode. Why you would criticize the film for not being like a million others of its ilk that involve visits to libraries, and to weird old people who say cryptic things, and then to a convenient way to end the curse that the movie can work towards is beyond me. That's what I mean by you inventing a movie in your head and then criticizing the actual film if it doesn't play by your (just as arbitrary) rules.

I loved the fact that a bunch of normal teenagers were dropped into a horrible situation with little context and then just scramble to survive it. You complain that "really good horrors (or movies, for that matter) have characters with bigger stories and bigger lives than are portrayed on screen." Really? I don't believe this to be true in any way, shape or form, but lets play your game. What cliched "bigger life" did you want from these characters? What do they need to be doing off the screen for you to care about what happens on the screen?

And to address a wider criticism, I don't really get those complaining that IT didn't make use of its shape-shifting ability or display any intelligence. My response to that is: and? What makes the entire premise work is that it rests on the least convoluted rules possible. It walks in a straight line towards you (allowing for obstacles because, even though the unaffected can't see it, it has a physical presence, and thus physical damage can slow it down, however briefly) at a walking pace until it catches up to you and assaults you. Having sex with someone else before that happens passes IT on. It has no intelligence, no ulterior motives, no guile, no trickery, no inner life. In fact, I assume that it doesn't really have shape-shifting powers - it just looks like whatever the affected person sees it as.

[Irish]

Pretty straightforward, no?

No, because that isn't good writing. It wouldn't pass muster in a freshman composition class. A well written movie wouldn't require you to write scenes in your head to cover up its own awkwardness, which is essentially what you're doing here.

My calling Jeff an exposition character wasn't a value judgement. It was a statement of fact, because that's his only function in the narrative. Once he fulfills that function, he disappears.

Now this part of your response is, frankly, weird:

Why you would criticize the film for not being like a million others of its ilk that involve visits to libraries, and to weird old people who say cryptic things, and then to a convenient way to end the curse that the movie can work towards is beyond me. That's what I mean by you inventing a movie in your head and then criticizing the actual film if it doesn't play by your (just as arbitrary) rules.

You've accused me of projecting onto the film by ... projecting onto my post? I never said anything like what you have here. Visits to libraries? Weird old people? Seriously, what the hell is that? At no time did I say this should be some cliche ridden bore, or that it should be lazy in a similar way to other, lazier movies.

Have we met? What in God's name would lead you to believe that I (or anyone, for that matter) would want what you've described?

I don't believe this to be true in any way, shape or form, but lets play your game. What cliched "bigger life" did you want from these characters? What do they need to be doing off the screen for you to care about what happens on the screen?

I like characters that are multi-dimensional. I don't believe it's so outrageous to assume other people do, too. The problem with the characters in It Follows is that they literally have zero dimensions. The movie never tells you anything about them and they don't make meaningful decisions that define them.

It has no intelligence, no ulterior motives, no guile, no trickery, no inner life. In fact, I assume that it doesn't really have shape-shifting powers - it just looks like whatever the affected person sees it as.

I'd think this was cool, and subsequently agree with you, if the creature wasn't recognizable during specific scenes. When "it" appears as a character's living relative, that implies its appearance isn't arbitrary. That its form has some greater meaning. If not to the characters in the text, then to us in the audience. Once that happens, the nature of the creature ceases to be a cool mystery and just becomes more sloppy writing.

No offense, but

Haha, right.

Consider that I'm posting in good faith before you say stuff like that.

[transmogrifier]

stuff

I agree with none of this, like 0%. In fact, I think we watched two different movies and you expect things out of movies that I don't.

You seem to prefer genre films to spell everything out for you, that's fine. But if you really needed a flashback scene following Jeff as he figures out what is happening or something like that, then I don't know what to tell you. How Jeff figures it out is easy to guess with even a seconds thought, but you seem to dislike the idea of the audience being asked to speculate. I think that is an unreasonable criticism and again, I don't know what to tell you. I simply cannot relate to your criticism. It comes from a different planet.

You seem to want all the i's dotted and the t's crosses, but in a movie like this, which is all about living and reacting in the moment then, just like the characters, the audience is asked to figure some of this stuff out themselves. And, essentially, where IT comes from is totally irrelevant to how the characters in this movie are introduced to it and how they have to deal with it.

[TGM]

[KK2.0]

yeah, the characters sometimes act in illogical ways, but I love the cinematography, atmosphere, concept, music etc I couldn't help but yay it.

It's very Carpenter-esque indeed, feels like a reinterpretation of Halloween I guess, the slow walking monster chasing teenagers that have sex, the eletronic soundtrack, the eerie suburbian setting. I got the impression that they were chased by several different ghosts, not that it was the same creature changing shapes. The conclusion was excellent as well. There's also a strange anachronism to it that I enjoyed, everything looks like it's from the seventies or eighties, which is the period of Carpenter's best flicks, except for the nerdy girl's e-reader.

Maybe it's a stretch of my part but the bars near the pool looked a lot like Phantasm's portals.





edit: wow, adter watching Renegade Cut this is elevated to one of my favorite modern horror flicks.

[Irish]

What were your favorite movies this year?

I didn’t see anything this year. I’ve been making this movie for so long. I loved Kingsman. I really liked It Follows.

What did you like about it?

It was the best premise I’ve seen in a horror film in a long, long, long time. It’s one of those movies that’s so good you get mad at it for not being great.

How could it have been great?

He could have kept his mythology straight. He broke his mythology left, right, and center.

Source

Huh. Now wouldja looka that.

[transmogrifier]

Ah, the good old Appeal to Authority.

[MadMan]

yeah, the characters sometimes act in illogical ways, but I love the cinematography, atmosphere, concept, music etc I couldn't help but yay it.

It's very Carpenter-esque indeed, feels like a reinterpretation of Halloween I guess, the slow walking monster chasing teenagers that have sex, the eletronic soundtrack, the eerie suburbian setting. I got the impression that they were chased by several different ghosts, not that it was the same creature changing shapes. The conclusion was excellent as well. There's also a strange anachronism to it that I enjoyed, everything looks like it's from the seventies or eighties, which is the period of Carpenter's best flicks, except for the nerdy girl's e-reader.

Maybe it's a stretch of my part but the bars near the pool looked a lot like Phantasm's portals.





edit: wow, adter watching Renegade Cut this is elevated to one of my favorite modern horror flicks.

Whoa that's cool. Nice catch.

[number8]

I was going to post that interview in the Hateful Eight thread. It's a really fun one.

[Irish]

You got me, trans. You got me. I can't really form an argument when you bark out "Appeal to authority!", especially when it's clear that you don't understand what that means, nor do you seem to understand how logical fallacies work.

Good talk. Always a good talk.

[transmogrifier]

You got me, trans. You got me. I can't really form an argument when you bark out "Appeal to authority!", especially when it's clear that you don't understand what that means, nor do you seem to understand how logical fallacies work.

Good talk. Always a good talk.

Sure Irish, if convincing yourself that I'm dumb helps you to get through the day, go crazy. I couldn't give a shit.

[Irish]

lol, hold up a sec before you fall on your sword there, trans.

The appeal isn't a problem in and of itself. If it were, then academic citations wouldn't work at all. The fallacy kicks in when the "authority" in question is out of their element. If I had cited Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Miss Universe, 1986, you might call me on that. They're not recognized experts in this particular field. (I can cite examples from hard sources around this idea, but what would be the point? We can guess what your response would be.)

If you bark "appeal to authority" over Tarantino, then you're saying he lacks credibility. You're saying his opinion on It Follows has no weight, despite 20 years experience in the business, despite directing 8 feature films himself and all of them genre movies. You're saying that despite a recognized command of film history, that he can't be considered an expert in the context of this discussion. That his actual words should be discounted out of hand merely because I pointed them out.

Is that what you meant to say?

I wouldn't make the claim that you're stupid. I'll leave it to others to speculate about your lack of general intelligence. At this point, all I can do is shrug.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go read that interview again with a grin on my face the entire fucking time.

Good talk, buddy.

[transmogrifier]

If you bark "appeal to authority" over Tarantino, then you're saying he lacks credibility. You're saying his opinion on It Follows has no weight, despite 20 years experience in the business, despite directing 8 feature films himself and all of them genre movies. You're saying that despite a recognized command of film history, that he can't be considered an expert in the context of this discussion. That his actual words should be discounted out of hand merely because I pointed them out.

Is that what you meant to say?

Yes, I'm well aware of what an Appeal to Authority is. Hence why I used the term. You are apparently familiar with one component of it. That's okay, it's a start.

In my opinion, Tarantino's opinion on whether the breaking of the mythology weakens the film carries no more weight than any other audience member's. But even if it did, it is STILL not a valid argument, because authorities are not infallible. This is the component of Appeal to Authority that you apparently haven't got around to yet. I'd also suggest brushing up on the use of citations in academic discourse.

Now, if you believe you won the argument because Tarantino agreed with you, that's your choice. I could find a filmmaker somewhere who loved It Follows, I'm sure, but I haven't looked because it would carry absolutely no fucking weight whatsoever.

[Winston*]

The appeal isn't a problem in and of itself. If it were, then academic citations wouldn't work at all. The fallacy kicks in when the "authority" in question is out of their element. If I had cited Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Miss Universe, 1986, you might call me on that. They're not recognized experts in this particular field. (I can cite examples from hard sources around this idea, but what would be the point? We can guess what your response would be.)

If you bark "appeal to authority" over Tarantino, then you're saying he lacks credibility.

What? No. An appeal to authority is the fallacious assumption that because someone is an expert in their field, their view is correct. The fallacy hinges on the person having credibility.

Otherwise you could end every university essay with "so and so said x and they know their stuff, so I agree with them". Point well argued. A+.

[transmogrifier]

What? No. An appeal to authority is the fallacious assumption that because someone is an expert in their field, their view is correct. The fallacy hinges on the person having credibility.

Otherwise you could end every university essay with "so and so said x and they know their stuff, so I agree with them". Point well argued. A+.

Irish is correct in that offering the opinion of someone famous with no expertise in the field under discussion is a form of the Appeal to Authority fallacy (the easiest one to spot), but what you describe here is the more insidious and academically relevant form of the fallacy. A citation to an expert in an academic essay points your reader to the evidence or reasoning that that expert posits for their particular opinion - it is not, as you say, a way of saying "Hey, this big name agrees with me, so I must be right!" What Irish did in this thread is the perfect example of an Appeal to Authority, because there is absolutely no reasoning or explanation in the source he linked to - Tarantino just gives his opinion (as Tarantino is entitled to, of course) and Irish gleefully ran with it as if it was proof of his personal opinion being correct as well.

Which, you know, no harm done. But this sort of shit:

I wouldn't make the claim that you're stupid. I'll leave it to others to speculate about your lack of general intelligence. At this point, all I can do is shrug.

Is not really conducive to me giving Irish any more of my time. It's cowardly and snide, without even having the luxury of being correct about the topic at hand.

[Spinal]

The interview linked above was edited down. Tarantino's longer comments on the movie can be found here.

He [writer-director David Robert Mitchell] could have kept his mythology straight. He broke his mythology left, right, and center. We see how the bad guys are: They're never casual. They're never just hanging around. They've always got that one look, and they always just progressively move toward you. Yet in the movie theater, the guy thinks he sees the woman in the yellow dress, and the girl goes, “What woman?” Then he realizes that it's the follower. So he doesn't realize it's the follower upon just looking at her? She’s just standing in the doorway of the theater, smiling at him, and he doesn’t immediately notice her? You would think that he, of anybody, would know how to spot those things as soon as possible. We spotted them among the extras.

The movie keeps on doing things like that, not holding on to the rules that it sets up. Like, okay, you can shoot the bad guys in the head, but that just works for ten seconds? Well, that doesn't make any fucking sense. What's up with that? And then, all of a sudden, the things are aggressive and they're picking up appliances and throwing them at people? Now they're strategizing? That's never been part of it before. I don't buy that the thing is getting clever when they lower him into the pool. They're not clever.

Also, there’s the gorgeously handsome geeky boy — and everyone's supposed to be ignoring that he's gorgeous, because that’s what you do in movies — that kid obviously has no problem having sex with her and putting the thing on his trail. He's completely down with that idea. So wouldn't it have been a good idea for her to fuck that guy before she went into the pool, so then at least two people could see the thing? It’s not like she'd have been tricking him into it. It’s what I would've done.

[Spun Lepton]

Mitchell's response was to say that the presented mythology in the film was nothing more than hearsay from the kid who gave her It. So, the mythology could potentially be incorrect. He could have been planned it that way or he could be backtracking. We'll never know. Personally, I don't care.

[Spinal]

Mitchell's response was to say that the presented mythology in the film was nothing more than hearsay from the kid who gave her It. So, the mythology could potentially be incorrect. He could have been planned it that way or he could be backtracking. We'll never know. Personally, I don't care.

I tend to side with Tarantino. I think it's a pretty weak narrative move to have your exposition character present mythology that may or may not be accurate, unless there's a strong reason for it. It seems more likely that there were just inconsistencies that they didn't catch.

Also, I support your right not to care.

[number8]

One specific counterpoint: the boy in the beginning, Exposition McSex, during his exposition, specifically described "it" to her as slow but clever.

[Spinal]

Exposition McSex

The best.

[transmogrifier]

Mitchell's response was to say that the presented mythology in the film was nothing more than hearsay from the kid who gave her It. So, the mythology could potentially be incorrect. He could have been planned it that way or he could be backtracking. We'll never know. Personally, I don't care.

I think within the context of the film, that explanation works. Everything we "learn" about It comes from what we see it do ourselves, and what some scared exposition character thinks he has figured out based on his own observations/experience. Of course there would be inconsistencies between the two. In that way we can speculate about what those inconsistencies (e.g., in the theater, the roof, the appliances and the pool) mean, if anything. It's possible/probable that the inconsistencies were actually the result of the filmmaker looking for cheap wow moments, or writing himself into a corner, but the films pure focus on the victims' scramble for survival and lack of context for the attacks actually covers for it effectively.

[transmogrifier]

I tend to side with Tarantino. I think it's a pretty weak narrative move to have your exposition character present mythology that may or may not be accurate, unless there's a strong reason for it.

But that's the whole point - the exposition character doesn't know anything beyond what he has seen as the potential prey of some predator. So it stands to reason that he would have (just like the audience) imposed a set of rules to help him understand it based on inductive reasoning, but they are not necessarily going to be correct.

[KK2.0]

That was clear to me when they meet McSex for the first time after It starts chasing the girl, he seemed clueless about what to do next and was surprised that the creature was still visible to him.