10 Fan Theories That Actually Improve Classic Horror Films
9. The Movie Is A Metaphor For Realizing Your Own Mortality - It Follows
Everyone's first reaction to It Follows is that it's a giant metaphor for STDs. It's all about a monster that you "pass on" through intercourse, and so it's got to be about the dangers of casual sex, right? Actually, the director has come out against that interpretation, so what's it really about?
The film deals with this looming terror that you can never escape from, and so one theory posed by HitFix is that it's about realising your own mortality. That's something so many young adults have to grapple with, going from feeling immortal and carefree to feeling that life is incredibly fleeting. In support of this interpretation, Yara reads this telling quote from The Idiot in one scene: "When there is torture, there is pain and wounds, physical agony...And the most terrible agony may not be in the wounds themselves but in knowing for certain that...your soul will leave your body and you will no longer be a person, and that this is certain."
So while the film can be read as just being about dread and anxiety over the future in general, moments like these suggest it's specifically about realising that you will die one day, and the fact that this knowledge, like the creature, will continue to follow you around forever.