Making a good sequel is an uphill battle, and truly great horror movie follow-ups feel like a rare breed nowadays. For every 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple or Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, there’s a Black Phone 2 or an Alien: Romulus that, while having some merit, can’t really justify themselves compared to their predecessors’ legacy. There’s a dichotomy that many sequels struggle with: is this something that serves as a genuine and thoughtful evolution of the original, or does it only exist because the first movie was successful?
It’s a question that looms over every potential follow-up to a beloved first installment, including the upcoming They Follow, the sequel to 2014’s instant cult-classic It Follows. A midnight festival darling about an STD (with a D for Demon) stalking a young woman after she sleeps with her boyfriend, the original grossed more than $23 million on a $1.3 million budget, and has been hailed as one of the best horror movies of the 2010s. The film pushed Maika Monroe into mainstream stardom, and now, 12 years later, she’s returning to the role of Jay Height, alongside a recently announced ensemble that’s filling out more of the world just teased in the original.
