Not many horror films in recent years have remindend as much of horror films from the 80´s ; you might have checked Ty West´s the house of the devil ; which was an awesome slow-burn horror movie that came out in 2009 and made a great impact on the horror community.
Sex , virginity ; some of the rules of the horror genre that Kevin Williamson introduced back in 96 with SCREAM or its original title SCARY MOVIE ; have usually been considered as the key to survive this movies but the menace behind them was never explained ; except from perhaps the original halloween in which carpenter represented in the character of Jamie Lee Curtis the fear of giving yourself to someone or even having a crush on a guy as Michael Myers represented something which could take both her virginity and her life .
WATER AND NOSTALGIA
The need of coming back to a time that we used to dread and now we miss .
In fact most of the conversations throughout the move are about what they used to do as kids ; right at the time when Paul spends the night at Jay´s in a remarkable Nightmare on elm street omage i might say.
Another character right at the end of the movie as they approach the pool ; Jara ; about how her parents did not allow her to go to the 8th mile when she was young just for the state fair . Nostalgia is a recurrent topic in David Robert Mitchell´s movies such as THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER which kinda works as it follows but without ghosts and killings
-still from the myth of the american sleepover
Is there anything creepier than the thought that there´s nothing left to life ? well kinda ; actually this has something to do with the director as his characters can only look back and try to reflect in their past lives eventhough they can´t be more than in their 20´s .
THE INFLUENCE OF HALLOWEEN AND CARPENTER
The shape haunts laurie in JOHN CARPENTER´S HALLOWEEN (1978)
Those wide angle panavision shots that made halloween so special are also an important part of it follows ; so much in fact that these 180ยบ camera moves really give the movie a sense of place. The killer´s POV that black christmas started back in the day are also in both movies although we don´t know excactly what´s haunting these teenagers on it follows .
Another connection between these two movies is sexuality ; as Hugh says in the beginning of the movie ; this curse is given to you by someone and you can also give it to someone else ; except here is not just the shape trying to get laure but also on the whole lot of these teenagers .
80´S HORROR RULES
It wasn´t until Kevin Williamson wrote down the rules of horror in 1996 SCREAM that a movie was self reflexive of these rules ; none the less the seem pretty obvious for any 80´s horror fan ; sex , drugs , a masked killer and a lake or any isolated location .
Mitchell must have been inspired by these rules ; specially by the whole if you have sex you die or the virginity issue on the original halloween .
The genius of this film is that it makes a whole story from one of the basic horror movie rules as I said before ; what happens to your soul or your conscience knowing that you´ve cursed someone else trying to save yourself from this "ghost " or whatever you think it is .
