(Updated 02/28/2024)
David Robert Mitchell's second movie, IT FOLLOWS, is a wildly creepy indie horror watershed that left an indelible mark on audiences who were willing to go along for the ride. The 2014 release played with established horror genre conventions and blended psychological terror with effective allegory about sex and relationships. And, more than anything else, it had great characters and unforgettable images.
The announcement of THEY FOLLOW, a sequel also directed by Mitchell, came as a pleasant surprise. We still don't know too much about THEY FOLLOW, but here's everything we can tell you about the movie right now.
What's the Release Date for They Follow?
No release date is set for THEY FOLLOW at this point. Distributor NEON said only "coming soon" when announcing the movie. We're hoping for a 2024 release, but it could end up being 2025 before we see the movie.
Is There a Trailer for They Follow?
Because the movie has not been completed yet, there is no trailer for THEY FOLLOW. We'll update as soon as footage is available, because we're eager to see it, too!
What's the Plot of They Follow?
We know virtually nothing about the plot and characters of THEY FOLLOW right now. There's just the tagline — "It's Everywhere" — on the teaser poster. We know that Maika Monroe is set to reprise her lead role from IT FOLLOWS. Since the sequel is coming ten years after the release of the original movie, her character will have changed a lot.
Spoilers for IT FOLLOWS, um, follow.
IT FOLLOWS is oriented around Jay (Monroe), who, after having sex with her boyfriend, is told that she will now be followed by a slow but relentless shapeshifting entity. It will kill her if it catches her, then begin to follow whoever it was following before Jay. She can pass the entity to someone else by having sex with them.
We know that IT FOLLOWS ended with Monroe's character Jay and her friend Paul (Keir Gilchrist) making the choice to have sex, and consequently pass the Entity to Paul. Since Maika Monroe returns, we assume that Jay has survived. She won't be a college student any longer. She might even have a family. (Would the Entity follow Jay's children?) Has she forgotten her ordeal? NEON head Tom Quinn once suggested a sequel might feature targets turning the tables on the Entity — does that account for the title of the sequel? We don't know at this point.
What Was the "It" in It Follows?
Good question! Part of the appeal of IT FOLLOWS was the slippery nature of the allegory behind the nameless entity that followed characters. Since the entity is passed to new people through sex, it was easy to assume that it represented HIV or some other sexually-transmitted infection. It could also be anxiety or regret. Or maybe something else! Truth is, we don't know.
David Robert Mitchell has refused to explain the entity. He has only offered that the movie is inspired by anxiety dreams he had about being followed when he was young. "I'm not personally that interested in where 'it' comes from," Mitchell said in 2015. "To me, it's dream logic in the sense that they're in a nightmare, and when you're in a nightmare there's no solving the nightmare. Even if you try to solve it."
We'll tell you more about THEY FOLLOW soon!
All images courtesy of NEON.