How graphic are the sex scenes, really?

There are three main sexual encounters, and none of them are played as erotic. The first in a car shows brief thrusting and aftermath before turning into a kidnapping; the second in a hospital is shot mostly from a distance; the third is brief and somber. The nudity in the movie is almost entirely on the monster itself, and it is meant to look grotesque and unsettling rather than sexy.

Is there a sexual assault scene in this?

Early on, Jay has consensual sex with a guy named Hugh, and immediately afterward he forces a chloroform rag over her face and ties her to a wheelchair in an abandoned building. He doesn't assault her while she's tied up—he does it to force her to see the monster walking toward her—but the imagery of a half-dressed girl bound to a chair and crying is intense and carries heavy assault overtones. Later, the entity also attacks a character in bed in a way that mimics sexual violence.

How gory is it compared to something like Scream or Evil Dead?

Way less blood than a slasher, way more psychological dread. The worst visual is in the first five minutes: a dead girl on a beach in the morning light with her leg snapped backward and her jaw twisted open. After that, the violence is mostly hair-pulling, people being thrown across rooms, and one scene where a character gets shot in the leg.

Is this actually a metaphor for STDs, or is it deeper than that?

On the surface, the STD mechanics are obvious, and critics initially latched onto that. But if you watch the movie, characters aren't being 'punished' for promiscuity the way 1980s slashers did—in fact, passing it on is the only way they stay alive. Director David Robert Mitchell has said it's much more about the general anxiety of growing up, losing the safety net of childhood, and realizing that death is coming for everyone eventually, just slowly.

What about the sequel, They Follow?

A sequel titled They Follow with Maika Monroe and director David Robert Mitchell returning was announced by Neon, expanding the mythology of the entity. Watching the 2014 original first is essential since the whole joy of the movie is figuring out the rules alongside the main character.

It Follows – WISE Score & Parent Review

Name: Screenwise
Author: Screenwise

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Screenwise Verdict

It Follows is one of the sharpest, creepiest indie horror movies of the 21st century, holding a well-earned 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. The setup is simple and brilliant: 19-year-old Jay sleeps with a guy in the back of a car, and he informs her he has just passed a supernatural thing on to her. It can look like anyone—a stranger, a friend, a corpse—only people who have had the curse can see it, and it walks toward you at a steady pace. If it catches you, it kills you, and then goes back to hunting the person who gave it to you.

If you have an older teen who is getting into film, photography, or elevated horror (think Hereditary or Get Out), this is top-tier viewing. It treats the audience like adults, skips the cheap fake-out scares, and uses widescreen composition to make you lean forward and squint at the edges of the screen.

That said, the R rating is earned. The horror is inextricably tied to sex, vulnerability, and bodily violation. Nobody is having fun party-slasher deaths here; the vibe is heavy, dreamlike, and deeply unsettling. Watch it with your high schooler with the lights off, and good luck not staring suspiciously at pedestrians for the next three days.

Age Fit

Strictly for older teens (15+) and adults. A younger kid has no business here, and even horror-savvy 13-year-olds might find the sexualized body horror and slow-burn psychological dread way more unsettling than a standard slasher.

WISE Breakdown

Wholesome

55

For an R-rated horror movie about a sexually transmitted curse, the core friend group is surprisingly loyal and supportive of one another. The tone is heavy and filled with existential dread, so it is far from lighthearted, but the teenage characters aren't cruel or cynical.

Imaginative

92

One of the most original horror premises of the 2010s. Director David Robert Mitchell uses an intentionally ambiguous time period, wide 360-degree camera pans, and a relentless walking-entity mechanic to create constant visual tension without relying on cheap CGI.

Safe

30

Rated R with good reason. The opening scene shows a mangled corpse on a beach, the premise hinges on sexual encounters (including a coercive chloroform kidnapping early on), and the entity often appears partially or fully nude in grotesque states.

Enriching

82

A masterclass in suspense filmmaking, cinematography, and score (by Disasterpeace). For older teens interested in film craft or allegory, it offers plenty to chew on regarding mortality, loss of innocence, and the transition into adulthood.

Parent Info

✓

Why It Might Be Great

Filmmaking craft is front and center: the camera pans slowly in wide circles, training you to scan the background of every frame for someone walking in a straight line toward the main character.
Disasterpeace's synth score does half the heavy lifting, channeling 1980s John Carpenter dread without feeling like cheap nostalgia.
Zero obnoxious teen tropes: the kids in this movie actually like each other, don't bully each other, and immediately try to help their friend survive an impossible situation.
Smart allegory that goes deeper than a standard PSA—it plays with the anxiety of growing up, intimacy, and the realization that mortality is always walking toward you.

⚠

What to Watch For

The cold open is brutal: within the first five minutes, a girl is shown dead on a beach with her leg bent backward at an impossible angle and her body mangled.
Coercive sex as a plot mechanic: Jay's date drugs her with chloroform and ties her to a wheelchair after they sleep together, solely to keep her still long enough to explain the rules of the curse.
Disturbing nudity: the entity frequently takes the form of naked or half-naked people—including an older woman in a hospital gown, a battered woman urinating on herself in a kitchen, and a disturbing scene involving a family member silhouette.
Lingering paranoia: because the monster looks like an ordinary person walking slowly, this specific mechanic sticks in your head when you're walking through a parking lot or school hallway alone.

Conversation Starters

"If you were stuck with this curse, what's the actual smartest logistical plan to survive it long-term?"
"Why do you think the director put rotary phones, a 1970s car, and a futuristic clamshell e-reader all in the same movie?"
"Critics love to debate what the monster represents—some say STDs, some say trauma, some say just getting older and dying. Which one makes the most sense to you?"
"Notice how there are almost no parents around in the whole movie? What does that do to the mood?"

Deep Dive

Why the background of every shot matters

Most modern horror relies on loud audio stings and things jumping into the foreground. Director David Robert Mitchell does the opposite. Because the entity can only walk at a normal human pace, the movie shoots in wide, lingering frames—a college classroom, a suburban street, a beach—and lets you do the work of scanning the crowd.

Is that girl in the yellow dress across the quad just walking to class, or is she walking in a dead-straight line toward Jay? That mechanical simplicity is why the movie works so well as a group watch. Everyone in the room starts pointing at the screen at different times.

The deliberate weirdness of the setting

If your teen watches this and asks what year it takes place, the answer is: none of them. Set in the suburbs and outer rings of Detroit, the production design intentionally scrambles the timeline:

Kids watch black-and-white 1950s sci-fi movies on bulky CRT televisions.
The cars are from the 1970s and 80s.
Jay's friend Yara reads Dostoevsky on a futuristic, shell-shaped e-reader that doesn't exist in real life.
It's impossible to tell whether it's late spring, summer, or autumn—characters wear heavy coats in one scene and swim in an above-ground pool in the next.

Mitchell designed it this way so the movie feels like an actual nightmare, unbound by a specific decade. Notice too that adults are almost completely absent from the movie, and when they DO appear, it's usually either as a silhouette or as a form the monster has stolen.

How it compares to other teen horror

If your teen liked the curse mechanic in Smile or Talk to Me, It Follows is the blueprint those movies borrowed from. It has much less gore than Talk to Me or Evil Dead Rise, but a much heavier emphasis on sexual dread and atmosphere. The final third at an indoor swimming pool gets slightly sillier in its logic—earning that lower 6.8 IMDb user score from viewers who wanted stricter rules—but the first hour is near-perfect tension.

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