If Follows is one of our favorite horror films in recent memory, and
as much praise as has been heaped upon it, we think it's do some more.
We're diving into how it uses its camera to create a constant sense of terror.
These are three brilliant moments of horror, in It Follows.
(Music)
Let's get straight into our first moment.
It's the opening shot of the movie.
So we're giving you all the context you need, none.
(Sound)
>> Hey, are you okay?
>> Yeah.
>> You need some help?
>> No.
>> We're going to speed through a little bit here for Brevity sake but
this spin just keeps going.
>> Annie?
>> Right off the bat you know you're in for a treat from its very first moments,
the film subscribes to one of our favorite horror film philosophies that the monster
you can't see is often scarier than the monster you can.
We don't know what she's running from.
We don't know why she's running.
We don't even know if there's anything actually there at all.
And it is feels almost like our view is also running from whatever it is off
screen that she keeps looking at.
There's so little given to us that it's tempting to conclude that this
shot is doing nothing but withholding.
But we don't think that's quite true.
We think this spectacular 360 degree camera move
does actually tell us something.
It's letting us know exactly the kind of movie we're going to watch.
Where we can expect our terror to come from.
And how the camera is going to figure into that relationship.
And I know that sounds kind of vague and abstract,
but it's actually super important especially in a horror film.
When we watch a film, we construct a model of the physical space in our head.
We put together the pieces shown to us by each shot to build a crude mental map.
In horror, this mental map is very important because we use
it to predict where danger might come from, and many horror films and
establishing shot often shows us the whole relevant space.
So that we can see the arena the scarers will be working with in.
And a lot of times, this means that the screen space your shown and
then end up mentally constructing is only a portion of the actual world.
For example check out one of the more terrifying scenes in Jaws.
Early on we're showing the entire relevant space before we move in and
examine it closer and then, (Noise) There's a whole open ocean behind this,
but we never see it or think about it either because it's clear that
as the audience, the whole relevant arena is placed in front of us.
As if there's a sphere of action where the scary stuff can happen and
a neutral spectatorship space set back from it where we can look on.
This space is relevant.
This space is not.
This is the sphere of horror.
These are just the bleachers.
But it follows doesn't do that.
This very first shot let's us know that Mitchell space is 360 degrees around.
And its arena for potential horror is everywhere.
We don't get to sit back and
watch from any bleachers, we are only ever inside of the sphere of action.
And when you're inside the sphere of action,
you with your limited field of vision can only ever see part of the danger.
There will always be scary areas you can't keep an eye on,
which leads us to the second thing this shot tells you.
The danger is going to come at you from the off screen space, that the frame lines
pose a dramatic danger of concealing the very thing that terrifies us.
Let's look at our next moment to see these camera principles in action in
a more conventional scene.
But first, some brief context.
There is a monster, it's sexually transmitted.
It walks towards you unceasingly forever unless you pass it on.
Only the infected can see it, it can take on many forms.
Also, the girl from the opening shot is very dead.
Our protagonist is actually this girl, Jay, who is the new target of the curse.
We've also learned some new stylistic language even though we may not have
realized it.
Take a look at our next scene so we can start to unpack what that is.
>> Mom?
(Music)
>> Laura, >> Don't open the door.
(Music)
>> See, everything's okay.
(Music)
>> First of all, catch your breath.
We promise it's over.
No more to worry about.
Let's take that first scene one more time and slower and
pay attention to what the camera is and more importantly isn't doing.
While the beginning of the scene explores the room with some mobile hand held shots
and when Jay first sits down, we look at her in three quarters view like this.
When we finally begin to entertain the idea of opening the door,
our perspective shifts to a straight on center punch medium shot like this.
This cuts against a couple different shots of the other side of the room,
here, here, and here.
And if we were to diagram the camera placement in this part of the scene,
it would start to look very familiar.
Mitchel has placed his camera here entirely in the middle of the action.
It's almost like the first shot with the camera spinning all the way around, except
instead of panting between one side of the space and the other, it does it in cuts.
In fact, it does it with almost perfectly 180 degree cuts every time.
There are no over the shoulders.
He never gives us a wide shot or a 50-50 that connects the two halves of the space.
It is just us stuck in the middle only ever seen half of anything.
And you see this cutting pattern all over the film,
shots from outside the sphere of action are the exception not the rule.
More often than not, it follows puts us in the middle and makes us spin.
And this shooting style opens us up to another form of terror.
If it always walks towards its victim and the camera is generally placed between Jay
and it, then you wind up with the camera style that almost always shoots so
that it is walking directly towards us.
So not only can we almost always extrapolate where it might
be even when we can't see it, but
that extrapolation puts our view in the two most terrifying places by design.
We are always either staring directly towards the danger or
it's literally right behind us.
So, when the door opens and
everything seems fine our conscious brain shrugs like these two goobers.
But our subconscious brain says there's a long dark hallway right there and
that's exactly the direction this (Bleep) is going to come from because that's how
this camera works.
So, when we turn our back to the hallway one last time,
full on dread, the nagging suspicion has been planted and
all that's left is to cut back one more time and pull the trigger.
(Noise) >> As time goes on,
it follows develops its camera language further,
we continue to submit the association of it with walking directly towards camera.
It never moves circularly around us anymore.
Once we're with Jay, it's pretty much directly at us every time.
After a while, Jane her gang try to track down the source of this SEC, discovering
the school her infector went to, which brings us to our third moment here.
>> Attention all girls, interested in playing club lacrosse this spring, there
will be an informational meeting held in the LT431 room right after school today.
Final reminder for all wrestlers, please hand in your permission forms to Mr.
Dwigs today.
Also your banquet is this Sunday at 3 PM here at the high school.
It's time again for the High School Musical.
This year's the (Inaudible) starting at 7PM to 9:30 in the show and
another performance tomorrow at 2PM.
Tickets will be five dollars per student and seven dollars for adults (Inaudible)
>> Let's process this scene literally for
a second.
This is a shot where a camera slowly spins around while a bunch of students walk to
class while our protagonists lean on a desk, and it is unbelievably terrifying.
We've been taught since the first shot that a moving frame line can conceal or
reveal dangers.
So before we see anything else.
Already that's scaring us, and
we've learn from the second shot that it is almost certainly walking toward us.
So that's got us rattled.
And because we know it's probably walking straight into our lens and our lens is
spinning to point every single direction, we know it could be coming from anywhere.
So, when we see a maybe monster maybe not figure who is walking toward us.
The film has set up non-monster walkers too, so we can never be too sure, and
then turns our back to it, we kind of want to cry.
And then when we've got our backs to it the short reveals our heroes also aren't
looking in its direction and this is just torture, but the shot goes on.
After our heroes settle at the desk, the camera doesn't stop spinning.
When the camera keeps turning, we know that it means it probably has
something relevant to show us, which means that there's probably new information.
And new information can mean only one thing and
that's even worse danger in the form of a still approaching form.
And when we finish the shot with our back to the approaching figure and
settle on our heroes were already pretty much dead.
Until the shot ends with a zoom which is another piece of visual language we've
been conditioned to associate with the monsters approach.
The walls are closing in on our heroes metaphorically and literally because we
know the camera likes to hide the monster outside the borders of the frame, and
the borders of the frame are cutting off more and more.
It feels exactly like the monster is getting closer even though we
can't see it.
Combine that with the fact that the now still camera feels like it searches over,
like its direction of approach has been decided and that's it, we're out of here.
We'd like our moms to come and takes us home now,
all of these emotions we're feeling here and there's a whole lot of them.
Come from us making terrifying predictions based on camera patterns the film has been
familiarizing us with, since its beginning.
By attaching camera rules to scary events such that we are only ever shown them in
a certain way.
We associate those kinds of shots with a fearful stimulus.
And once we've done that, we're like Pavlov's dogs and all the movie has to do
is frame up a shot just right and we automatically experience that same fear.
This shot has no dialogue, no real narrative information.
No way to tell if the walking student is actually it or
just an innocuous bystanders.
But thanks to some clever setup and a lot of dedication to a formal style,
we can make conclusions and feel fear from the naked camera movement itself.
Which is why we think these three terrifying moments are totally brilliant.
So what do you think?
You have a different take on these moments?
Any other horror films that use their camera to perfects terrifying effects?
Let us know in the comments below and be sure to subscribe for
more Cinefix movie list.
(Music)