March 28, 2015 -- Ordinarily, I don't bother going to see horror movies, but I made an exception in this case since “It Follows” is getting great reviews. Horror movies are one of the worst genres of Hollywood movies. I used to say the worst, but maybe that title belongs to comedies now. It turns out this is not, after all, a great movie, but it is certainly a lot better than most Hollywood horror films. Maybe that's because it is actually an independent film, not made by one of the major studios.

Everybody knows that in horror films, young, attractive people who have sex in a car will be targeted for death (usually with knives). That is the case here, too, but the film puts a different spin on the theme. A pretty young girl, Jay Height (played by Maika Monroe) decides to have sex with her boyfriend. When he's finished, he immediately attacks her and kidnaps her. Sex is really dangerous in horror films.

Jay wakes up to find herself tied to a chair. Her boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary) who turns out to be no friend at all, explains that he has “passed it on to her.” What he has given her is not a sexually-transmitted disease, but a curse. She is now being stalked by a nameless, faceless horror which is visible only to Hugh and her. He shows the scary stalking creature (who at first appears in the form of a nude woman) to her, then releases her. It moves slowly, but can assume the appearance of anyone (sometimes fully or partially nude) including those closest to her. If it gets her, it will kill her, then it will go after Hugh. Jay is advised by Hugh to immediately pass this curse on to someone else.

The next day at school, Jay sees an elderly woman walking straight towards her and she runs away. From then on she sees various people walking towards her in a menacing way. Sometimes they seem almost normal. At other times they look more like malevolent killer zombies. A fearless neighbor, Greg Hannigan (Daniel Zovatto) agrees to have sex with Jay and to accept the curse, but he doesn't really believe in it. For some reason, he seems unaffected by the curse, at least for a while.

Another friend of Jay's, Paul (Keir Gilchrist of “It's Kind of a Funny Story”) wants to have sex with Jay in the worst way, but this is put on hold because of the curse. Paul comes up with an clever idea of how to trap the monster, but he and all his friends (which reminded me of the ghost-busting team in the Scooby Doo cartoons) are unaware of ground fault interrupter circuits required by electrical codes to be installed in bathrooms, kitchens and other wet areas. This results in a rather desperate standoff between the monster and the inept ghostbusters.

The curse is never really explained. How did it start? Can it ever end? The nature of it makes for a compelling story. Since the monster is visible only to the intended victim, and those who passed the curse on to him or her, there is little proof of its existence. The police are of no help. This curse lends itself to all kinds of possibilities. What better way to punish rapists, for instance? If a woman passed the curse on to several strong men, they could gang up on the monster, lock it in a strong box and dump it in the ocean. The story ends on a note which leaves an opening for a sequel.

This is a genuinely creepy movie with a few scary moments, mostly caused by sudden, loud noises and quick film cuts. The camera work by Mike Gioulakis (“John Dies at the End”) is interesting. There are a number of slow, horizontal pans in the film to set the mood in this dimly-lit film shot in Detroit. The landscape of urban decay is used to good effect in the film. The raggedy edges of Detroit look like row upon row of haunted houses. This film rates a B.

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