Ambiguity to end a movie must be very frustrating to some people.
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell spoke to Vulture last week to explain the vagueness of the ending of his recent film, It Follows. A reminder that following this are massive spoilers for the film.
During the third act of the film, Jay (Maika Monroe) and her friends go to a local pool in order to set-up a possible way to rid themselves of the supernatural source that is following Jay after a sexual encounter with a guy she was dating. Mitchell explained why the plan went the way it did and what he expected audiences to see when the characters started to work on it.
“It’s the stupidest plan ever! It’s a kid-movie plan, it’s something that Scooby-Doo and the gang might think of, and that was sort of the point. What would you do if you were confronted by a monster and found yourself trapped within a nightmare? Ultimately, you have to resort to some way of fighting it that’s accessible to you in the physical world, and that’s not really going to cut it.”
“We kind of avoid any kind of traditional setup for that sequence, because in more traditional horror films, there might be a clue that would lead them to figure out a way to destroy this monster. I intentionally avoided placing those. Instead, they do their best to accomplish something, and we witness its failure. It’s probably a very non-conventional way of approaching the third-act confrontation, but we thought it was a fun way to deal with it.”
Following that scene, Jay and Paul (Keir Gilchrist) were seen holding hands and walking down the street near their house. During the scene, audience members could see a slowly moving body, much like the monster that follows her throughout the film, before the screen cuts to black. Mitchell said that this version was not what they originally planned on using in an interview with The Film Stage on Thursday.
“We had a couple variations on it. I think we had some where he was really far back, and then some where no one would ever miss him, but we settled on the one where he’s there, but not too close. It allows people to make up their own mind of what it means.”
It Follows is now playing in theaters after a recent wide release. The film just recently crossed the $5 million dollar mark at the box office.