It Follows

It Follows operates within the margins of contemporary social consciousness, though its engagement with progressive sensibilities remains oblique and almost accidental. The film's central metaphor, a curse transmitted through sexual contact, invites readings about bodily autonomy, consent, and the anxieties surrounding sexuality in modern life. Jay Height, the protagonist, is positioned as neither victim nor villain but rather as an ordinary young woman navigating circumstances beyond her control, which represents a modest departure from traditional horror heroines. The film's deliberate ambiguity regarding her agency and culpability suggests something approaching a feminist consciousness, though the narrative stops short of any explicit interrogation of these themes.

The cast composition reflects the 2015 indie horror landscape rather than any deliberate commitment to representation. Maika Monroe carries the film as its central figure, and the supporting ensemble is largely white, with minimal diversity in speaking roles. The film makes no particular effort to center or foreground the experiences of marginalized communities, nor does it engage with questions of intersectionality or systemic inequality. The setting, a vaguely Midwestern American landscape of suburban and urban decay, remains largely depoliticized and ahistorical.

Mitchell's refusal to provide explanatory frameworks, definitive resolutions, or moral clarity ultimately works against any coherent progressive messaging. The film is more interested in sustained dread and formal experimentation than in social commentary. The curse itself remains fundamentally apolitical, a force of nature rather than a system or structure that might be interrogated through contemporary frameworks. What emerges is a film that flirts with thematic resonance without committing to substantive engagement with modern cultural anxieties beyond the visceral and the personal.