News

5 Things You May Not Have Known About ‘It Follows’

Published

9 years ago

March 29, 2015

We’ve all been hearing about David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows for months, but this weekend offered the first opportunity for many to finally see what all the buzz is about. Hopefully you’ve taken that opportunity, but if not, don’t worry. I’ve avoided including anything too spoilery in this list, though I’d still say this is all more interesting if you’ve actually seen the film.

1. The theatre from the film is the same one where The Evil Dead had its original premiere.

The theatre featured early in It Follows is the Redford Theatre in Detroit, which is where Sam Raimi premiered The Evil Dead in 1981. Bruce Campbell had apparently attended the theatre often as a child. From the Wikipeda article on The Evil Dead:

Raimi opted to have the most theatrical premiere possible, using custom tickets and wind tracks set in the theater, and ordering ambulances outside the theater to build atmosphere. The premiere setup was inspired by horror director William Castle, who would often attempt to scare his audiences by using gimmicks. Local turnout for the premiere exceeded the cast’s expectations, with a thousand patrons showing up. The audiences responded enthusiastically to the premiere, which led to Raimi’s idea of “touring” the film to build hype.

2. The Villain is known as “The It”.

The villain in It Follows doesn’t really get a name in the movie, but if you wanted to call it something, you could refer to it the same way Mitchell and the crew did while filming.

Asked in an interview with Movies.com about whether it had a nickname in the vein of Halloween’s The Shape, Mitchell said, “We just called it The It when we were labeling it. So we’d just talk about, say, The It on the roof. And then I’d just describe the appearance, whatever it was.”

I’ve also seen it referred to as “the follower,” but here you have it straight from the writer/director.

3. One of the most important parts of It Follows was only completed at the last minute.

The score for the film, which is one of its most crucial components, wasn’t even ready until 3 weeks before the film debuted at Cannes. In that same interview, Mitchell said:

“Up until that point, we’d temp’ed with a certain amount of Disasterpeace’s cues in certain parts, but I used some Carpenter, some Cage. I can’t remember everything, but it was temped with a ton of different composers….It was never about mimicking a Carpenter movie. There’s certainly homage to that, and I’m not denying that, but it was never about just mimicking what Carpenter would do.

4. The rules laid out in the film may not be the actual rules.

The rules about how The It operates, which are set up in the film, may or may not be completely accurate. As Mitchell explains in an interview with Yahoo Movies, “The only rules that we hear are rules that we’re told by a character within the film, who has access to limited information. If you look at the film enough, you can start to understand how he may be figuring these things out and how he has gotten the information that he has. But you also have to understand that they’re not rules on a stone’s tablet; they’re a character’s best guess about what’s happening to them. So, you know, they seem mostly right. But for me, that’s kind of fun, in that there might be some gaps in information, some things that he doesn’t understand and neither do we.”

That’s good to know in case we get a sequel, which based on what Mitchell told Vulture isn’t out of the question:

“I have a lot of different kinds of projects in many different genres, so I don’t know that a sequel would be the next thing that I would do, but I’m certainly open to it. I just kinda want to see how things play out. But I do want to say that when I wrote this, I had some bigger setpieces, a few things that I sort of simplified, and some stuff that we chose to cut out because of the budget and time, so there’s all kinds of fun things that could be done with this concept and story.”

5. The shell phone is not a real thing.

According to Mitchell (in the Yahoo interview), the sea shell smartphone/e-reader was made up for the movie to keep things feeling “like a dream or something outside of time”. In another interview with A.V. Club, he mentioned that having specific devices can make a film feel dated, so they made one up. As he notes, someone will probably make it now. Apparently people keep asking him where they can get one.

Have you seen the film yet? Let us know what you thought.

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Editorial

Yay or Nay: What’s Good and Bad in Horror This Week

Published

1 day ago

May 4, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Welcome to Yay or Nay a weekly mini post about what I think is good and bad news in the horror community written in bite-sized chunks.

Yay:

Mike Flanagan talking about directing the next chapter in the Exorcist trilogy. That might mean he saw the last one and realized there were two left and if he does anything well it’s draw out a story.

Yay:

To the announcement of a new IP-based film Mickey Vs Winnie. It’s fun to read comical hot takes from people who haven’t even seen the movie yet.

Nay:

The new Faces of Death reboot gets an R rating. It’s not really fair — Gen-Z should get an unrated version like past generations so they can question their mortality the same as the rest of us did.

Yay:

Russell Crowe is doing another possession movie. He’s quickly becoming another Nic Cage by saying yes to every script, bringing the magic back to B-movies, and more money into VOD.

Nay:

Putting The Crow back in theaters for its 30th anniversary. Re-releasing classic movies at the cinema to celebrate a milestone is perfectly fine, but doing so when the lead actor in that film was killed on set due to neglect is a cash grab of the worst kind.

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Lists

The Top-Searched Free Horror/Action Movies on Tubi This Week

Published

2 days ago

May 3, 2024

Timothy Rawles

The free streaming service Tubi is a great place to scroll when you’re unsure what to watch. They are not sponsored or affiliated with iHorror. Still, we really appreciate their library because it’s so robust and has many obscure horror movies so rare you can’t find them anywhere in the wild except, if you’re lucky, in a moist cardboard box at a yard sale. Other than Tubi, where else are you going to find Nightwish (1990), Spookies (1986), or The Power (1984)?

We take a look at the most searched horror titles on the platform this week, hopefully, to save you some time in your endeavor to find something free to watch on Tubi.

Interestingly at the top of the list is one of the most polarizing sequels ever made, the female-led Ghostbusters reboot from 2016. Perhaps viewers have seen the latest sequel Frozen Empire and are curious about this franchise anomaly. They will be happy to know it’s not as bad as some think and is genuinely funny in spots.

So take a look at the list below and tell us if you are interested in any of them this weekend.

1. Ghostbusters (2016)

Ghostbusters (2016)

An otherworldly invasion of New York City assembles a pair of proton-packed paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and a subway worker for battle.An otherworldly invasion of New York City assembles a pair of proton-packed paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and a subway worker for battle.

2. Rampage

When a group of animals becomes vicious after a genetic experiment goes awry, a primatologist must find an antidote to avert a global catastrophe.

3. The Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren uncover an occult conspiracy as they help a defendant argue that a demon forced him to commit murder.

4. Terrifier 2

After being resurrected by a sinister entity, Art the Clown returns to Miles County, where his next victims, a teenage girl and her brother, await.

5. Don’t Breathe

A group of teens breaks into a blind man’s home, thinking they’ll get away with the perfect crime but get more than they bargained for once inside.

6. The Conjuring 2

In one of their most terrifying paranormal investigations, Lorraine and Ed Warren help a single mother of four in a house plagued by sinister spirits.

7. Child’s Play (1988)

A dying serial killer uses voodoo to transfer his soul into a Chucky doll which winds up in the hands of a boy who may be the doll’s next victim.

8. Jeepers Creepers 2

When their bus breaks down on a deserted road, a team of high school athletes discovers an opponent they cannot defeat and may not survive.

9. Jeepers Creepers

After making a horrific discovery in the basement of an old church, a pair of siblings find themselves the chosen prey of an indestructible force.

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News

Morticia & Wednesday Addams Join Monster High Skullector Series

Published

2 days ago

May 3, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Believe it or not, Mattel’s Monster High doll brand has an immense following with both young and not-so-young collectors.

In that same vein, the fan base for The Addams Family is also very large. Now, the two are collaborating to create a line of collectible dolls that celebrate both worlds and what they have created is a combination of fashion dolls and goth fantasy. Forget Barbie, these ladies know who they are.

The dolls are based on Morticia and Wednesday Addams from the 2019 Addams Family animated movie.

As with any niche collectibles these aren’t cheap they bring with them a $90 price tag, but it’s an investment as a lot of these toys become more valuable over time.

“There goes the neighborhood. Meet the Addams Family’s ghoulishly glamorous mother-daughter duo with a Monster High twist. Inspired by the animated movie and clad in spiderweb lace and skull prints, the Morticia and Wednesday Addams Skullector doll two-pack makes for a gift that’s so macabre, it’s downright pathological.”

If you want to pre-purchase this set check out The Monster High website.