It’s been almost a decade, and I’m still not over the clamshell device fromIt Follows. In fact, fans of the movie have been clamoring (pun intended) for a real-life version of it since the movie came out in 2015. Its allure may come from its adorable pink ’60s compact Polly Pocket-esque design, but beyond its cutesy aesthetics, there is a strange familiarity that is evoked by the device that leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Still,the uncanniness that it evokes is simultaneously intriguing and disorienting. In a movie whereMaika Monroe’s Jay is being stalked bya slow-walking, murderous entitythat is passed on through sex, the clamshell phone is just one small detail to make the world ofDavid Robert Mitchell’s modern classic horror film that bit more alien to the audience.
What Is the Clam Phone in ‘It Follows’?
One of the creepiest things aboutIt Followsisthe surreal, perplexing, and nightmarish feeling of its set design. The whole movie feels…off. The setting feels familiar, yet not familiar, in a way the viewer can’t quite put their finger on, like a bad dream. Other than the movie being set in Detroit, there are no clear indicators of what season, year, or even decade the movie takes place in. The mise-en-scèneis an amalgamation of different eras of technology and styles; the fashion, decor, and tech are often in conflict with each other. One of the most striking elements is Yara’s (Olivia Luccardi)retrofuturistic compact clamshell device. It is unclear if it’s actually a phone, but the screen looks like an e-reader – she’s readingThe Idiotby Fyodor Dostoevsky on it – it has signal bars and a digital clock, and at one point she uses it as a flashlight. It is the only piece of technology in the movie thatdoes not exist in the real world, though its familiarity stems from something real; the viewer knows what a flip phone is, and what an e-reader is, but the clamshell device is something that is only familiar because of the existence of its components.
The Clam Phone Makes the World of ‘It Follows’ Stranger
The fact that the clamshell device is a piece of technology that doesn’t exist, combined with how out of place it is compared to the mostly analog technology in the movie,makes it feeleerily uncanny; likesomething that could only exist in a dreamlike (or nightmarish) reality.Its placement is designed to be unsettling and to reinforce the Kafkaesque tone of the movie. On some level, perhaps subconsciously, the viewer picks up on the fact that things are strangely off-putting, but that eerie feeling isn’t confirmed until the clamshell appears. It’s the one prop in the movie that forces the viewer to question everything. Wait a minute…what year is it? Is this real life? What is that thing? Where can I get one?
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In aninterview with A.V. Club, directorDavid Robert Mitchell discusses the device and its place in the movie:
There are production design elements from the ’50s on up to modern day. A lot of it is from the ’70s and ’80s. That e-reader cell phone—or “shell phone”—you’re talking about is not a real device. It’s a ’60s shell compact that we turned into a cell phone e-reader. So I wanted modern things, but if you show a specific smartphone now, it dates it. It’s too real for the movie. It would bother me anyway. So we made one up. And all of that is really just to create the effect of a dream—to place it outside of time, and to make people wonder about where they are. Those are things that I think happen to us when we have a dream.
At the end of the day, the clamshell device inIt Followsis equally alluring as it is disturbing. It may be pink and small and cute and sure, we all want one, but it alsoreinforces the nightmare that the characters are living in. Its disorienting presence is proof ofthe liminal reality that the movie takes place inthat is operating within its own dream logic, defying the viewer’s own understanding of the world. With a sequel,They Follow, on the way, let’s hope Mitchell brings back the tech gadget of our dreams (and nightmares).
It Follows
It Followsis available to watch on Netflix.
Watch on Netflix
