I finally watched It Follows (2014), and now I truly get why people call it one of the best horror films of the last decade.

They’re right. This thing is a masterpiece.

Good horror isn’t about blood splatter or lazy jump scares. It’s about rules. And the rules here are brutal in their simplicity.

Jay Height (Maika Monroe) hooks up with a boy she likes. Afterwards, he drops the bomb: he’s just passed on a curse. Now It will follow her. Slowly. Relentlessly. No tricks, no smarts—just a figure walking toward her at all times.

The only way out? Have sex with someone else and dump the curse on them. But if they die, It comes back up the chain. Meaning you’re never safe. You’re never done.

It’s a genius mechanic because it keeps the dread alive long after the credits roll. You start scanning the background of every shot, wondering if that person walking across the street is It. That’s where the real horror lives—not in shocks, but in paranoia.

The metaphors practically spill out of this film. Sure, it’s an STD allegory, but it’s also about death itself. No one outruns it. You can stall, you can pass it on, you can pretend it isn’t there—but eventually it catches up. That inevitability is scarier than any monster in makeup. Mitchell even amps this with the Detroit setting: a decayed cityscape in contrast to sterile suburbia, as if to remind us that all things crumble.

And then there’s the sexual politics. Jay blames herself for inviting the curse, even though she never consented to this. Meanwhile, the guys around her posture as heroes by volunteering to “take it on.” But they’re not heroes—they’re cannon fodder, human condoms delaying her doom. It’s grim, it’s cynical, and it’s perfect.

The performances are electric. Maika Monroe sells every ounce of dread. The cinematography by Mike Gioulakis is meticulous, framing characters in wide shots that make you nervously scan for background threats. And then there’s the score: Disasterpeace’s synth nightmare that sounds like John Carpenter on ketamine. It haunts the entirety of the film.

This is the kind of horror that burrows into your head. It makes you think about sex, mortality, shame, suburbia, and the fragility of safety. And unlike most horror, it actually gets scarier the more you reflect on it.

Easily one of the best horror films of the 2010s. Highly recommended. And with a sequel—They Follow—now in the works, it feels like this nightmare isn’t done with us yet.

Here’s where to watch:

Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/496965/it-follows

Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/region/na/detail/0JXO804YTGYLA43JTSXWB4P4ES/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

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