Earlier this week, directorQuentin Tarantinospoke withVultureabout his highly-anticipated new WesternThe Hateful Eight. As he is often prone to do, the filmmaker also spoke about a number of other topics regarding various aspects of cinema. Tarantino seemed to give praise to the indiehorror moviehitIt Follows. The director’s comments did not fall on deaf ears, withDavid Robert Mitchelloffering a retort earlier today. But, before we get to that, here’s whatQuentin Tarantinohad to say about the film, before offering a much lengthier discussion.
“It was the best premise I’ve seen in a horror film in a long, long, long time. It’s one of those movies that’s so good you get mad at it for not being great.”
When asked how he would have “fixed"It Follows, turning it from good to great,Quentin Tarantinolaunched into a lengthy diatribe about the mythology of the film. If you haven’t seenIt Followsyet, the story centers around a young woman named Jay (Maika Monroe), who is haunted by a supernatural entity after a sexual encounter. The only way to get rid of this being, or “follower” as QT calls it, is to pass it on through another sexual encounter. Here’s whatQuentin Tarantinohad to say, in great detail, about what he thought was wrong withIt Follows, which was written and directed byDavid Robert Mitchell.
“He [writer-directorDavid Robert Mitchell] could have kept his mythology straight. He broke his mythology left, right, and center. We see how the bad guys are: They’re never casual. They’re never just hanging around. They’ve always got that one look, and they always just progressively move toward you. Yet in the movie theater, the guy thinks he sees the woman in the yellow dress, and the girl goes, “What woman?” Then he realizes that it’s the follower. So he doesn’t realize it’s the follower upon just looking at her? She’s just standing in the doorway of thetheater, smiling at him, and he doesn’t immediately notice her? You would think that he, of anybody, would know how to spot those things as soon as possible. We spotted them among the extras. The movie keeps on doing things like that, not holding on to the rules that it sets up. Like, okay, you may shoot the bad guys in the head, but that just works for ten seconds? Well, that doesn’t make any f—ing sense. What’s up with that? And then, all of a sudden, the things are aggressive and they’re picking up appliances and throwing them at people? Now they’re strategizing? That’s never been part of it before. I don’t buy that the thing is getting clever when they lower him into the pool. They’re not clever. Also, there’s the gorgeously handsome geeky boy - and everyone’s supposed to be ignoring that he’s gorgeous, because that’s what you do in movies - that kid obviously has no problem having sex with her and putting the thing on his trail. He’s completely down with that idea. So wouldn’t it have been a good idea for her to f–k that guy before she went into the pool, so then at least two people could see the thing? It’s not like she’d have been tricking him into it. It’s what I would’ve done.”
The filmmaker’s remarks did not go unnoticed byDavid Robert Mitchell, who responded to the filmmaker’s comments on his Twitter page earlier today. The director seems to be taking QT’s comments in stride, offering to discuss these “notes” with him. Here’s what he had to say earlier today.
“Hey QT, why don’t we get together over a beer and talk about these notes. I have a few of my own for you.”
It Followsisn’t abox officeblockbuster by any means, earning $14.6 million throughout its theatrical run, but it opened rather large for an indie, earning $160,089 from just four theaters, for a whopping $40,022 per-screen average. Thethriller, which also starsKeir Gilchrist, Lili Sepe, Loren Bass and Jake Weary, expanded to 1,218 theaters in its third weekend, cracking the top 10 for three straight weeks throughout late March and April. Do you thinkQuentin Tarantinocrossed the line with his comments aboutIt Follows? Or do you think he makes some valid points?
