Homewrecker

30 - 𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓼

"There you are."

I looked away from the screen, startled as the black and white wheels of a Segway appeared beside the rotting and abandoned core of my apple among the grass blades in front of my shoes, blinking as I realized that I was actually supposed to be at work right then, that my lunch break had probably ended minutes ago, but I hadn't been able to look away from the screen.

Since I sat down, the girl in the movie—whose name I found out was Jay, realizing she was probably the Final Girl Ethan had mentioned earlier—had been followed by a half-naked woman peeing over her legs then by an eyeless tall man into her bedroom, but none of the other characters seemed to realize he was there. Now they were at the address of some random guy I hadn't seen before. I had no idea what was happening or who was following Jay, but I couldn't force myself to get up and leave. I wanted to see what happened next.

Now Ethan was staring down at me from his Segway, reminding me that I had to. "What are you doing all the way out here?" he asked as I hoisted myself up from the ground, not realizing that he had extended a hand until he pulled it back, pretending like he was running it through his hair. "I've been looking for you for, like, fifteen minutes."

I shrugged, glancing over at the screen. Now the random guy was telling Jay to sleep with someone, the first someone she could, and the confusion I already felt intensified. "Just, uh. . . do you remember the name of this movie?"

"It Follows," he informed me, glancing over his shoulder at the screen. Then back at me, taking in my bemused frown. "Do you have any idea what's happening in this movie?"

"Yes. It's . . . following Jay. It follows Jay."

He nodded drily, unconvinced but there was a slight tilt to the corner of his lips. "Okay, so Jay goes out on this date with a guy she thinks is named Hugh and they have sex in his car. Then he chloroforms her and tells her that it is going to follow her. Now, by it, I don't mean the Stephen King It, totally different it. Common term in horror films."

"Okay," I said, now feeling more confused than before.

"The it in this movie is more like a supernatural STD than a child-eating clown. If you sleep with someone who has it, it follows you. Slowly, and it's always following you. And the only way to get rid of it is to sleep with someone else, then it follows them but if it gets to them, it kills them and goes back to whoever gave it to them. So, you either spend your whole life running and always on the defense against it, or you're essentially condemning someone else to death."

We turned away from the screen, starting toward the exit beside the hedges. "And that's what you call a cinematic masterpiece? A movie basically telling you not to have sex or you'll die. Like the coach from Mean Girls."

He spun around on his Segway, so he was facing me and treading backwards. "You need to start considering the symbolism here. The movie isn't telling you not to have sex, but anyone who watches horror films knows it's a bad idea. All horror films pretty much scream that if you have sex, you're dead."

Then he smiled, like he was waiting for something, then sighed disappointedly after obviously not getting it from me, whatever it was. "You're hurting me, you know that. Anyway, one of the brilliant things about It Follows is that it has so many different interpretations. Is the entity a representation of the AIDS epidemic that has no real cure or is the violating experience symbolizing sexual assault. The fact that no one else can see the entity except those who have experienced it, is that a reflection of how society treats rape victims? Then, when you couple it with the amazing soundtrack from Disasterpeace and the choices the director, David Robert Mitchell, made. Like how sometimes, the audience can see it, but the characters don't. Or that it isn't dated, like you have no idea what year it is and so much of it is left to your own imagination. The movie lets you figure things out yourself, it doesn't tell you everything. It's just, like, a really great film."