It Follows is a classic boy-meet-girls story, only the boy is using a fake name, the girl doesn’t know, and after they sleep together it turns out he’s passed more than fluids—specifically, a curse that makes her the target of an unstoppable, unmerciful demon. The demon takes human form; it can’t be seen by anyone but the cursed, and those who’ve previously borne the curse. (It only targets one person at a time.) It doesn’t run—it walks, stopping only when it’s in range for a vicious attack that leaves the victim’s limbs snapped, and their pelvises crushed by coital rage. It can’t open doors, but it knows how to knock. It’s the dark presence behind one of the more gripping horror movies of recent memory, as well as a fantastic argument for abstinence.
The soundtrack is handled by Disasterpeace, aka Rich Vreeland, an electronic artist who’s best known for a series of video game soundtracks. It Follows is his first film score, and he’s worked diligently to build a cohesive world of ominous moods. There are several recurring motifs: a booming percussion that comes like the monster pounding on the door; a shrill klaxon signaling when danger is near; a pattern of corrupted synths chugging into motion like some futuristic train on its way to the junkyard. A window shatters. A cluster of digital hornets buzz and whine. A jet turbine spins into motion, the air supercharging to an agonizing din, only to die down and leave the room sapped of tension. It’s a score that announces when something is about to happen, only to suddenly upend expectations and leave the room on edge.
It Follows wouldn’t exist without John Carpenter’s movies, and neither would the score. "Title" sounds like an update of Carpenter’s Halloween theme, as a lonely piano line is slowly enveloped by gothic dread. The melody is echoed on "Detroit", the arpeggiated tones brushing up against the sublime as the synthesizers drone from underneath. This is where you’d maybe dock Vreeland and the filmmakers a point for originality, except It Follows comes at a precarious moment for the American horror movie. Everything is either point-of-view or torture porn, and frankly, if someone wants mine a source as fertile as Halloween, they should go right ahead.
Like all OSTs, It Follows makes the most sense when you’ve seen the movie it’s made for—and you should see it, especially if you can watch horror movies in genuine terror of what’s about to happen. But it can work in other contexts, and a quick scan of Vreeland’s work shows he isn’t a one-trick composer leaning on his Casio. I’m most familiar with his score for "Fez", a video game that’s "Super Mario" meets M.C. Escher, in which a pixellated alien explores a slowly decaying cartoon world. "Fez" is a playful, adventurous game in which a sense of whimsy is frequently juxtaposed with the solitude of the unknown. Vreeland’s score conveyed those moods, just as his work for It Follows captures the paranoid fervor aroused by finding your normally comfortable surroundings transformed into a danger zone. Is it your friend you’re looking at, or the monster? How about now?
