The Most Exciting Movie Sequel of the 2020s Finally Gets an Update (Confirming How It Will Follow a Masterpiece)

Some of the greatest horror movies of all time have proven so successful that sequels became inevitable. John Carpenter’s Halloween has twelve of them, and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist has five (with a sixth on the way). Even Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining finally got one with Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep back in 2019, and even Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby has a prequel film now. For every horror masterpiece that develops follow-ups, though, there are just as many that remain singular, like Jordan Peele’s Get Out, or Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook.

The 2010s in horror were a great time, when new independent voices made themselves known alongside the franchises that persisted, with one of the most iconic films of the era being David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. Holding a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and grossing over $20 million on a budget of $1 million, It Follows quickly became a genre favorite. Suffice to say, fans were surprised in 2023 when news of a sequel, titled They Follow, was confirmed, with Mitchell set to return with star Maika Monroe also reprising her role. Now, Monroe has confirmed that They Follow is the next project she’s filming, and when measuring the movie on a “F-cked up” scale, it’s easily double the original film.

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While appearing on the latest episode of Happy Sad Confused, Monroe noted that finally, “We’re doing it. (They Follow is) the next job.” When asked by host Josh Horowitz how the new film compares on a “F-cked up scale” to the first film, which he said was probably an 8 or a 9, Monroe offered a major tease for the film.

“It seems like this would probably be like a 15 or 16. We’re pushing the boundaries on this one for sure. Even reading the script, you get the same sense of like the nostalgia, the slow camera movements, everything.”

With the original It Follows, Mitchell created a horror film that not only worked great in terms of its allegory but also in the distinct world that it created. Telling the story of Monroe’s Jay, a young woman who gets caught up in a bizarre curse where an entity endlessly pursues her unless she passes it on by having sex with someone. The entity can appear as any person living or dead, and is only seen by those who are in its sights, leading to both terrifying sequences and some hilarious moments of levity.

Given the title of the film and the tagline that it carried when announced (“It’s everywhere”), fans are primed to find a sequel that seems to be expanding the limits of the original film’s curse in major ways. Perhaps even taking on an Alien to Aliens level of extending the threat. With Monroe confirming the film is her next project, perhaps fans can expect to see the movie in 2027, though a release date has never been confirmed for the film.

One detail about They Follow that has not been confirmed, which fans are eager to hear about, is who will provide the score. The original film had one of the most haunting horror movie scores of the era upon release, thanks to artist Disasterpeace. It remains to be seen if he will return for the sequel, but with cameras finally preparing to roll, we can hope to find out soon.