It Follows

“It Follows” is a 2014 American supernatural horror film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Its story begins after nineteen-year-old Jay Height has sex with Hugh, a young man she has recently met. Hugh then reveals that he has deliberately passed a supernatural entity to her. The entity can appear as different people, including strangers and acquaintances, but it always walks slowly toward its victim. Only the person being pursued can see it. If it reaches that person, it kills them and then continues after the individual who transmitted the curse. Jay can temporarily pass the threat to someone else through sex, but the danger eventually returns if that person dies.

Maika Monroe plays Jay, with Keir Gilchrist as her sister Kelly, Daniel Zovatto as Greg, Jake Weary as Hugh, Olivia Luccardi as Yara, and Lily Sepe as her younger sister, Yara’s friend. The group attempts to protect Jay by watching for the entity and confronting it in an abandoned swimming pool. Mitchell keeps the creature’s rules deliberately incomplete, leaving its origin and exact nature unexplained. Its unhurried movement contrasts with conventional horror monsters, creating tension through the certainty that it will continue approaching regardless of obstacles.

The film was shot primarily in and around Detroit, Michigan, and its setting is central to its atmosphere. Empty houses, deteriorating neighborhoods, broad streets, and modern suburban interiors give the story a recognizable but strangely disconnected environment. Mitchell also avoids fixing the movie to one precise period. Older cars and mid-century architectural details coexist with contemporary clothing and technology, producing the film’s distinctive temporal ambiguity.

Mike Gioulakis served as cinematographer, and Richard Vreeland, who records music under the name Disasterpeace, composed the score. Vreeland’s electronic soundtrack uses pulsing synth textures that recall 1980s horror music while remaining closely tied to the film’s own rhythm and imagery. The score became one of the movie’s most widely discussed formal features.

“It Follows” premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival in the Critics’ Week section. Radius-TWC released it in the United States on March 13, 2015, in limited theaters, followed by wider distribution later that month. Made on a reported budget of approximately $1.3 million, it earned more than $20 million worldwide. The film received strong critical attention for its visual style, sound design, treatment of sexual transmission, and unusual combination of adolescent drama with supernatural horror. It established Mitchell as a prominent filmmaker before his later feature “Under the Silver Lake.”