The Myth of the American Sleepover (2011)
Directed by David Robert Mitchell
Four young people navigate the suburban wonderland of metro-Detroit looking for love and adventure on the last weekend of summer.
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What critics compared The Myth of the American Sleepover to
Writer/director David Robert Mitchell ("The Myth of the American Sleepover") pulls off a tricky balance with his ingenious response to 80's horror films where teenage sex meant death and monsters walked leafy suburban streets in broad daylight by presenting his original, nightmarish idea via an homage to John Carpenter.
His first, 2011's The Myth of the American Sleepover , was a beautifully observed, understated ensemble drama about teenagers in suburban Michigan; this one echoes many of the same concerns about acceptance and growing up, except this time there's a body count.
Mitchell’s previous film, his debut, was “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” a straightforward teen picture in the vein of “American Graffiti” and “Dazed and Confused,” only with less rambunctious kids.
The distinctive, personal touch to It Follows lies in Mitchell’s fresh, lucid take on youth, suburbia, and the everyday—all familiar American horror themes, but also ones he explored in his widely liked non-horror debut The Myth of the American Sleepover (10).
But Mitchell (who made a terrific slice-of-life teen drama called “The Myth of the American Sleepover”) braids these themes carefully within its genre shocks and pleasures.
What's most disappointing, given the potent themes of yearning, vulnerability and anxiety that connected Mitchell's lovely 2012 coming-of-age debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover (revisited here in a meta moment), to It Follows, is how little he makes us care about the central character or his consuming quest.
Writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s supremely confident follow-up to It Follows and The Myth Of The American Sleepover finds the filmmaker again submerging completely into the mood of his material, delivering a tasty neo-noir that wilfully melds tones and sensibilities with a playful seductiveness.
His debut feature, The Myth of the American Sleepover, paid tribute to such teenage dramas as American Graffiti and the work of John Hughes.
If nothing else, Under The Silver Lake represents a huge leap in ambition for writer-director David Robert Mitchell, whose two previous features— The Myth Of The American Sleepover and It Follows —never strayed far from their respective templates (coming-of-age memoir and creepy horror, respectively).
David Robert Mitchell already secured critics’ approval with his first feature, The Myth of the American Sleepover.