UPDATED BELOW ORIGINAL TEXT!
Quentin Tarantino is angry with IT FOLLOWS. Not because he doesn't like it, but because he wants to like it more than he already does. Never one to shy away from speaking his mind, Tarantino – in an interview with Vulture – rabidly discusses this past spring's surprise horror hit. For the most part, the HATEFUL EIGHT director has issues with the film's mythology, but acknowledges that it's still quite an original offering. Check it:
…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 that you start getting mad at it for not being great. The fact that he didn't take it all the way makes me not just disappointed but almost a little angry.”
So what are some of QT's main beefs with the flick? Well, allow him to explain!
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.
Quentin ain't done picking the thing apart.
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.
Many of these issues certainly occurred to me during, and after, my first viewing of IT FOLLOWS. That said, it didn't keep the movie from being a wholly unnerving and enjoyable time. I'll allow that Mitchell's mythology is pretty shaky, but atmosphere and suspense are the two most important ingredients of a successful horror movie, and IT FOLLOWS has atmosphere and suspense in spades.
What are your thoughts on this? Does QT have valid points, and if so, do you look at IT FOLLOWS in a different light now?
UPDATE: Via Twitter, David Robert Mitchell has fired back – in a fairly nice way.