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There are few horror films which I hold in as high regard as director David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 eerie creep-fest known as It Follows. The story is stunningly simple in its conceit: A teenage girl named Jay (Maika Monroe in a breakthrough performance) is the target of an unrelenting and otherworldly force that won’t stop its pursuit until she’s dead. The wicked little twist is that she falls into this nightmare world only after having sex with an older boy who has passed on this curse to her, almost as if it were a viral paranormal disease. There are no contortions by Mitchell – who also wrote the script – to explain why any of this is happening. Instead, like a great white shark or an erupting storm, this is a malevolent force of nature with no real rhyme or reason, rendering it even more effective and sleep-depriving at the end of the day. Like any good and proper nightmare, there are no real discernible rules and solutions, making the entire film feel more like a slow descent into hell and distinguishing it from such contemporaries as the Saw franchise or The Conjuring universe of films.
Good news from our peerless horror hounds over at The Hollywood Reporter: A sequel to It Follows – They Follow – has been officially greenlit and will feature the return of David Robert Mitchell in the director’s chair. Want even better news to sweeten the horror movie pot? The original film’s ingenue – aforementioned Maika Monroe – will also be returning to reprise her fan-favorite character Jay who wandered off-frame with co-star Keir Gilchrist’s Paul at the end of the first film to an ambiguous fate.
Tom Quinn’s production house Neon is actively involved in the It Follows sequel, bringing the lucrative package to potential purchasers at AFM (American Film Market) last week. For anyone that’s kept tabs on the potential for a sequel to this $21.9 million-grossing worldwide cult hit, Quinn has been an active champion of Mitchell returning to this dark story since at least 2015, going as far as suggesting possible plot points for a follow-up. With his involvement in They Follow, perhaps he’ll have an opportunity to put a bug in the ear of Mitchell; time will tell.
They Follow is tentatively scheduled to start rolling next year and will be produced by Neon alongside Good Fear Content. To keep some of the old creative gang together, It Follows producers David Kaplan, Erik Rommesmo, Rebecca Green and Laura Smith are also slated to return to the fold and will be joined production-wise by Neon and Jake Weiner and Chris Bender of Good Fear.
We’ll see how They Follow shakes out. We’re such admirers of the original film that we worry about any sequel being a watered down version of the original. But, with the return of Mitchell as the director and his original co-star, we’re willing to give this new story better than even odds on scaring up some real chills from moviegoers!
