Transformative Changes
It Follows became a revolutionary piece of work. When It Follows first came out (2014), there were no expectations. There was no promotional campaign focused on a big star. It was simply a low-budget indie with little marketing attached to it. However, It Follows was a revolutionary piece of work. 2014 was still a time when a film devoted to a supernatural curse could not enjoy the same reception it does today. There was no promotional campaign focused on a big star. It was simply a low-budget indie with little marketing attached to it. However, It Follows was a revolutionary piece of work.
From the onset, It Follows was a remarkable piece of work that was revolutionizing the way a horror film could be conceived. It Follows became a revolutionary piece of work. When It Follows first came out (2014), there were no expectations. There was no promotional campaign focused on a big star. It was simply a low-budget indie with little marketing attached to it. However, It Follows was a revolutionary piece of work. 2014 was still a time when a film devoted to a supernatural curse could not enjoy the same reception it does today. There was no promotional campaign focused on a big star. It was simply a low-budget indie with little marketing attached to it. However, It Follows was a revolutionary piece of work.
There was a sense of relief and gratitude when it became a horror classic. Maika Monroe went from relative obscurity to absolute praise almost overnight.The film was also a calling card for her co-stars. Unlike typical slasher film teenagers, for Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Olivia Luccardi, and Jake Weary, the characters were teeming with dread, guilt, and a quiet panic. Even after the cameras stopped rolling, that oppressive atmosphere seemed to linger on them in real life.
Maika Monroe: The Rise and Weight of a “Scream Queen”
Fragile yet fierce, the young woman in It Follows must carry a weight of death that is invisible. Ironically, in real life, Monroe was also burdened with another invisible weight, that of expectation.
Monroe was an instant success after It Follows, with studios eager to cast her in more horror and thriller films. She was expected to run, scream, and survive, and audiences were more than eager to place her in roles that demanded a scream. It was a badge of honor to be a “modern scream queen,” a title that places her in a lineage of horror heroines that includes Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell.
Monroe appreciated being recognized, though labeling her troubled her. She didn’t want to be placed in a box. In later interviews, she claimed she was tired mentally — having done seven films in a row, many of which blended into one. Some films were forgettable, while others were exhausting. At one point, she strongly contemplated giving up acting– for good.
The on-screen fear she had portrayed seemed to echo in her real life. Talking about unpredictable nature of the industry, she said it could be one year of of endless praise, followed immediately by months of creative suffocation. However, she didn’t disappear. She made a change.
Monroe chose projects that sparked her evolution. These included the psychological thrillers, Watcher and Significant Other, and the sci-fi blockbuster, Independence Day: Resurgence. Not all roles were critical triumphs, but they were crucial to her, for they provided the opportunity to expand her horizon, and move on from being pigeonholed as “the girl who runs.”
Monroe’s journey should resonate with many horror actors. There are many who cannot speak on the paradox of success, which traps them in the very thing that made them famous. And yet, she has managed to find equilibrium: embracing the genre that defined her, while refusing to be defined by it.
Keir Gilchrist and the Others Who Followed
Keir Gilchrist, who played the role of Paul, Jay’s lovesick and loyal friend, chose a different path. For him, It Follows was a stepping stone, not a label. He transitioned seamlessly to a variety of dramatic and comic roles, especially in the highly praised Netflix series Atypical. Unlike Monroe, Gilchrist was not typecast. He was able to still work on more nuanced, fully realized roles. This proved that working in horror was not a dead end, but rather a detour that enriched his craft.
The other members of the ensemble also found their own lanes. Daniel Zovatto stuck to his thrillers and indie features, while Olivia Luccardi became a staple in horror, working on Channel Zero and The Deuce. None of these actors became instant household names, but all of them gained a certain level of respect in the industry. It Follows awarded them a form of subtle prestige, a testament to the artistic bravery in a world of horror that often follows the same predictable formula.
The Shadows After Success
Cult fame can provide little light to an individual’s path. For Monroe in particular, the horror world loved her, but also boxed her in. After It Follows, there was the creative burnout.
She once recounted a time when scripts were hard to come by that valued her craft and did not rely on her anxiety as window dressing. She discovered that the horror genre, as a double-edged sword, could be both liberating and confining. Emotionally, it offered a rich canvas for storytelling, but for actors who specialize in portraying fear, it could also become a prison.
Nevertheless, Monroe’s tenacity is akin to Jay’s. Both the actor and the character she played will not allow themselves to be devoured by whatever it is that is relentlessly pursuing them. Monroe, at least in time, was able to craft and reclaim her career by her own design, selecting the directors and the work that matched her intuition.
What the Audience Didn’t See
Much like the conducting calm and slow-building dread in It Follows, the eerie calm also concealed the unremitting intensity and the team building that formed the backbone of the shoot. The cast filmed over the course of several long nights in Detroit’s decaying, forsaken, and eerily quiet and deserted neighborhoods. Monroe and her fellow actors were required to maintain a heightened emotional state of tension for long stretches as Mitchell captured his hauntingly drawn long takes.
The film’s distinctive visual cadence—exhibiting long intervals of stillness, deliberate slow pans, and an entrancing score—exacted an uncommon patience from the audience. The entity that ‘follows’ could take the form of anyone, and thus, many scenes were force-multiplied for the various background performers. This discourse produced constant, and at times, overwhelming paranoia on the set.
Instead of creating a rift, however, these challenges proved to be a powerful cement. The young cast found and formed tight bonds as a result of shared and collective exhaustion, the rescinding of their ‘divide’ for camaraderie that invited quiet dread, and serves as a powerful phantasm of youthful trust that drove their ‘natural’ performances. They were, as young performers, ‘not acting’ at all.
Monroe remembered that when filming the scenes, she was required to emote for the spirit of a character that was meant to foreshadow moonlight—she was genuinely drained and her spirit was cold. This emotional exhaustion she experienced authentically as a long take necessitated for a ‘desperate’ scene.
The Curse That Never Left.
From her perspective, the film serves as a legacy wherein for her, it is still ‘trailing her’ as an invisible phantasm. Monroe, still the iconic ‘modern horror’ figure, has recently begun filming the sequel to the ‘modern horror’ film, They Follow, which also serves as her foundational, primitive role.
This time, she is no longer the young woman trying to run from the curse. She is now an experienced actor who has learned to confront the challenge head-on — to allow fear to be a source of strength, not a limitation. The sequel is set to trace the Jay’s life years later which suggests Monroe’s own transformation, how surviving what was meant to destroy her completely changed her.
For Gilchrist and the rest of the cast, It Follows is a proud memory — the kind of project that reminds an artist, there’s a reason why they chose to pursue cinema. A small film that had grown into something timeless, peculiar, and endlessly debated.
It Follows is not just about an unrelenting curse. It explores what happens when success appears suddenly and uninvited. For Maika Monroe, the haunting did not end with the film. Instead, she stood there and confronted the challenge. The most haunting stories, she proved, are not the ones that happen on-screen. They are the ones that take place in quiet, uncluttered lines of the individuals who bring such stories to life.
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