As we’ve seen plenty of times over the years, reviews generally don’t mean a thing when it comes to the horror genre, which is why it’s always been such a reliable moneymaker for the studios. Audiences consistently show up in huge numbers for the sheer visceral thrills of hopefully being scared out of their seats, and there are hardly a lot of viewers going in expecting richly-drawn characters and an immersive narrative.
However, there are plenty of projects that manage to balance the best of both worlds, and one of the most gripping and original concepts of the last few years was David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows. Building a detailed mythology around the unique central premise of a sexually transmitted curse that plays with the ‘teens in peril’ trope we’ve seen countless times before, the filmmaker’s mastery of pacing and ratcheting up the tension marked him out as a talent to keep an eye on.
It Follows was a huge critical and commercial success, and it currently sits at an impressive 95% on Rotten Tomatoes after making over $23 million at the box office on a $2 million budget. Inevitably, that led to talks of a sequel, and while Mitchell has yet to show any concrete interest, it seems star Maika Monroe would love to work with the filmmaker again.
“One of my favorite directors I’ve worked with is David. I would do anything to be able to work with him again. Whether it’s an It Follows sequel or something else, I think he’s so insanely talented, and I’m looking forward to his upcoming projects that he has.”
Shortly after It Follows was released, studio RADIUS-TWC admitted that a sequel was a definite possibility, one that would turn the concept on its head and see Monroe’s Jay try and work her way down the chain to try and find the point of origin for the curse. That sounds like fresh way to approach a second outing, but the ball is in Mitchell’s court as to whether he wants to return to the world or not.