A decade after It Follows became one of indie horror's biggest success stories, the sequel is finally happening. Maika Monroe confirmed that They Follow will begin filming this summer, reuniting her with director David Robert Mitchell for what might be the most anticipated—and potentially most disappointing—horror sequel in years.
The original It Follows worked because of its restraint. Mitchell crafted a slow-burn nightmare that felt like John Carpenter directing an art film, with Monroe's terrified, determined performance anchoring the existential dread. The premise—a sexually transmitted supernatural curse pursued by a relentless, shape-shifting entity—was simple enough to be terrifying and ambiguous enough to reward interpretation.
Sequels to films like It Follows face an impossible task: the original succeeded partly because it left questions unanswered. Explaining too much risks destroying the mystery; retreading the same ground feels redundant. The horror sequel curse is real, and it's claimed better filmmakers than most.
That said, Mitchell hasn't exactly been prolific since It Follows. His 2018 follow-up Under the Silver Lake was a fascinatingly messy conspiracy thriller that earned a cult following but baffled mainstream audiences. Returning to the world that made his reputation makes commercial sense, even if it's artistically risky.
NEON producing the sequel is encouraging—the distributor has proven it understands how to market elevated horror without dumbing it down. And Monroe has evolved into one of genre cinema's most reliable leads, starring in everything from The Guest to Watcher with intelligence and commitment.
The question isn't whether They Follow will be well-made. With this team, it almost certainly will be. The question is whether a sequel can capture what made the original special without simply reminding us why we loved that film in the first place.
In , nobody knows anything—except that horror sequels are where promising filmmakers go to test whether they're actually geniuses or just got lucky once.
