Jay is a normal teenage girl whose life is disrupted when she has sex with her boyfriend Hugh and learns she has been cursed. Anyone who has sex with her will pass the curse on, and the entity following her, referred to as "It", will kill her and move on to the next victim. Jay and her friends attempt to repair the situation by trying to find and kill It, believing they succeed when It appears to die in an electrocution. However, the film ends on a cliffhanger as Jay and her friend Paul see someone following them down a path, leaving the audience unsure if It has truly been killed or if the curse continues.
1. It Follows – Narrative
Structure
BY EMILY HUMPHREYS
2. Narrative structure - summary
The film 'It Follows' uses a typical horror movie structure of a beginning
and an end. This linear structure basically starts with the normality of a
teenage life style which then becomes disrupted when Jay (the
protagonist) has sex with her new boyfriend only to find out that he has
passed on a curse to her and that if the curse or 'it' catches you it will then
kill you and pass back on to the person before you. This then causes a new
normal as jay and a group of friends try to capture and kill 'it' and for their
lives to return to a disrupted but normal ending. The twist that leaves the
film on a cliffhanger is that Jay and Paul end up walking down a path in
seemingly normal fashion to then see someone walking behind them, who
the audience doesn't know is a normal person or 'it'.
3. Equilibrium
Jay is a normal, seventeen year old American high
school student who spends time with her group of
friends, Paul, Kelly and Yara. She soon meets a young
boy called Hugh who wants to take her on dates, for
example the cinema. This leads to them leaving,
making us become suspicious of Hugh, as there is a
small build up of the sense that something has
changed. This then leads to Disruption.
4. Disruption
When jay and Hugh go on another date they end up
having sex in the back of Hugh's car. At this moment in
the film there is a twist as Hugh attacks Jay using
chloroform.This leads to the disruption in the film as it
is reveled that because Jay had sex with Hugh a curse
has been passed on to her which will follow her until it
kills her.
5. Recognition
Through the film Jay is aware of the curse that
is following her but doesn't realize the extent
of the danger she is in. This develops as the
danger level increases from 'it' following her to
her school, a public place, and then at the
beach where there is a close call of being
caught.
6. Attempts to repair
When jay soon realizes she cant escape this on her own
she tells her group of friends. This leads them to trying
to repair the situation by finding the guy who gave her
the curse in the first place. Another attempt to repair is
at the end of the film where Jay and her friends try to
kill 'it' by electrocuting it in a swimming pool. This
leads to the shot where were there is a pool of blood
from 'it' and the characters and the audience think that
the curse has been killed.
7. New equilibrium
The new equilibrium in it follows is the scene at the end of the movie. This
scene shows that Jay and Paul, the most effected people in the film, are
seemingly back to normality, walking down the road in peace now in a
relationship (from the fact that they are holding hands). The scene doesn't
end there though as one minuet there is a clear path behind them for
there to suddenly be someone behind them. This leaves us on a cliff
hanger as we don’t know if it's the curse or not.