The film doesn’t shy away from this influence and in fact sets out its stall early by essentially picking up where It Follows left off – a swimming pool. I worked in swimming pools for almost ten years and even I still find them creepy and in this grimy and run down location we see a young woman taking a poolside shower before interacting with someone invisible to the audience before being viciously killed by this unseen assailant. We then move from the cold open into the world of our main narrative and establishing shots of fields, farmland and smoke billowing from factories tell us we’re in a rural Australian town, clearly with industrial links. It’s in these fields we meet our two main characters – Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) who we see developing a fledgling romance in an abandoned factory out of town. They swear each other to secrecy but this is quickly betrayed and the two boys are subjected to a horrifying and demonic conversion ritual, facilitated by the local church which leads them to see a version of the person they desire the most who will at first try to seduce them, before viciously attacking them.
What follows is an effective mix of horror and romance that has some viscerally terrifying moments (one particular jump scare almost sent my Pepsi Max Cherry four rows forward) whilst also being quite sweet. I really cared for the characters and felt invested in both their romantic relationship and paranormal plight and was happy to join them on their journey. The film is incredibly effective in setting up it’s mood and the horrors of the homophobia that Naim and Ryan experience in a ‘the subtext is the text’ but unfortunately once the film has you in its emotional and narrative grasp, it fails to fully capitalise on it. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything bad about how the plot develops but unfortunately it does all begin to feel a bit one note, as we see repetitive attack sequences play out in different locations. The other issue is that along with a similar concept, the visual language, soundtrack and overall vibe of the film does lean quite heavily on what we saw in It Follows, which does leave the movie feeling like a little bit of a tribute act and for me it never quite shook this off.
The most impressive thing about this film is that despite its similarities to previous text and losing its way a little towards the end, it is very much a film worth seeing. The most thought provoking and engrossing concept of the film comes in the clash of Catholicism (it just shows that delving into the paranormal and The Exorcist style of faith on screen can still work and feel fresh no matter how many times it has been done) and the terror of being stalked by a demonic force. After this opening period, you’ll probably feel like you know where the film is heading and you’ll probably be right but I would still bet that you won’t want to stop watching!
