Where it really starts to turn is in an early scene where Monroe’s Jay goes on a date and plays a game of ‘who would you swap places with’ while waiting in the queue for the movies with her boyfriend. It didn’t strike me until later just how effective this scene was, not least because it introduces the key driving horror mechanic of the film: that if you’re the chosen one, something that mixes a Romero zombie and a James Cameron Terminator will keep coming for you. It won’t run, but it’ll just keep coming.

Mitchell’s trump card, though, proves not to be his idea, but his quite brilliant execution of it. His camera moves slowly. Oftentimes, it’s fixed, forcing us to stare at the film, looking for the tiniest hint of movement in the background. Those who watched The Strangers may recall a particularly chilly scene in the midst of that movie, that tends to get talked about more than the feature entire. It Follows maintains that kind of tone for the whole movie.

Furthermore, Mitchell never cheats, either. He has many moments where you think something is going to happen, certainly, but at no stage in the movie does he go for the cheap jump, or the quick scare. He builds and builds and builds and builds, and when he decides he’s going to release some of that tension, it’s genuinely chilling, very creepy and just a little bit scary. In truth, I haven’t felt so unnerved watching a horror film of this ilk in a long time.

For this isn’t taking the approach of The Babadook, last year’s best horror movie, that works on many levels. It Follows has things going on, but it’s a slightly more straightforward narrative beast. Which means that for the film to work, pretty much everything within it has to hold together.

The details matter. Mitchell’s use of sound is exquisite. On the way out of the screening, the people in front of me described the film as “weird”. I don’t think it is, but by moving the camera so little, and deploying Rich Vreeland’s score so stunningly, it suddenly feels like all the other movies are weird. This is the way horror of this ilk can and should be done. Even the ending is really well done, and not in a cheap way. How often can you say that?