ARTS & CULTURE
18 Obiter Dicta
Film reviews
» continued from page 11
of the American Sleepover) employs techniques
cribbed from the avant-garde, including dislocating widescreen cinematography and an unsettling
soundscape, which ratchet up the tension in creative
ways. Michael Gioulakis’ crisp composition and eerie
pools of light at night bring an arrestingly static,
tableau-like quality that echoes the staged scenarios of Gregory Crewdson’s photos, as if a boogeyman
has walked into a Norman Rockwell painting. The
nuanced, synth-heavy score by Disasterpeace provides a screaming punctuation mark.
Mitchell slyly inverts the conventions of deadmeat teenager flicks: It Follows spits in the eyes of
the wink-wink comedy of Scream or the wacky fun
of Drag Me to Hell. No matter its conceptual intentions, It Follows never ventures far from visceral
horror. Mitchell pulls off some sensational moments
of fear and suspense, populating a number of scenes
with well-timed jump scares as the Stalk W"'W'7G0