How’s this for high concept horror: there’s a creature out there – supernatural in a way, yet all-too-physical – that comes towards you slowly but inexorably until it reaches you. It can look like anyone, but only you can see it, and nothing can stop it. You can run away, or even drive off – it never moves faster than walking pace – but it never ever stops, so any time you do (say, to fall asleep) it keeps coming closer. There’s not a lot more to this film, but there doesn’t have to be: director David Robert Mitchell constantly goes for wide shots to give viewers plenty of time to scan the background for characters that might be steadily making their way towards Jay (Maika Monroe).
After a one night stand that takes a distinctly dark turn, she’s become the target of this unstoppable creature, and while she can pass on the curse to someone else by sleeping with them, if the creature then kills them it’ll shift focus back to her. Mitchell’s terror tale is full of teen characters with more rough edges than the usual, but the horror of the central concept is so strong it’s pretty much impossible not to sympathise with them. And even if you don’t, the creature’s ability to look like anyone means that even close friends and family can’t always be trusted. There are a few angles you could quibble with – the actual nature of the creature isn’t so much vague as ill-defined, leading to a resolution that feels a little convenient – but taken as a relentless experience where constant unease is relieved only by moments of pure terror, this is a hard act to follow.