It Follows Star Maika Monroe on Modern Horror and Overnight Success

Maika Monroe is 21 years old and makes her living for part of the year as a professional kiteboarder, the sport wherein a wakeboarder is essentially pulled jauntily along by the paragliding kite they’re roped to. That’s how the striking, blonde Californian spends a chunk of her summer. But when she’s not in the waves, she’s been busy starring in critically acclaimed genre fare, from Adam Wingard’s The Guest to her newest, It Follows, the incredibly buzzy new horror film from director David Robert Mitchell. Paste itself heaped quite a lot of praise on the film in our recent review, and after seeing the movie for myself this past week, I had to agree: Even by the standards of a jaded horror geek, It Follows is equal parts beautiful, thoughtful and inventive. It’s one of the best indie horror films of the last several years.

Little of that would have been possible without Monroe, who stars as the lead character, Jay, a college-aged young woman in suburban Detroit who is stalked by a supernatural entity that is passed from person to person via sexual contact. After receiving “It” via sex with the boy she’s dating, Jay must come to terms with both the reality of the monster (which only she can see) and the seeming impossibility of dealing with the threat, which continues to slowly walk toward Its target no matter what obstacles lay in Its path. It’s a truly disturbing concept, a plodding destructor and symbol of entropy itself that can’t be reasoned with or slowed down. It’s slow, but not stupid, and It will never, ever stop unless the curse is passed on to the next person in line.

Monroe’s Jay, a character with a twist on the female protagonist whose innocence is stripped away.

Fittingly, the film has been rewarded for both its universal critical acclaim and sold-out preview showings with a national release—what was meant to originally go straight to VOD has become a film currently playing in 1,200 theaters, giving many more horror fans a chance to see it. And make no mistake, this is one you’ll want to see in theaters, especially given Mitchell’s masterful use of space and backgrounds to build suspense and tension. The big screen allows a much better venue to carefully scan each background, searching for “It.”

We caught up with Monroe on Monday to talk about her biggest on-screen role to date and what makes for a new horror classic.

Paste: So, I imagine this was an interesting weekend with the movie in theaters. How did you feel, knowing it was going wide instead of VOD?
Monroe: I just never thought that this would be the outcome; this just doesn’t happen too often where plans change. It’s been a bit surreal, and so cool how many people are loving the movie … it’s been a crazy ride for all of us. We’re all just shocked and incredibly happy, and so excited for more people to be able to see it in the theater. On Twitter and social media everyone was telling us about driving an hour or two hours to go see it in limited release, and a lot more people are able to see it now.

Paste: How familiar are you with the types of ‘80s horror films that It Follows evokes? It really is a treat for genre geeks—are you big into horror at all?
Monroe: Well, some of my favorite movies are like The Shining, Halloween, Blue Velvet, A Nightmare on Elm Street—all of those are what I watched and loved as a kid. Those are the horror movies I knew, but I don’t know if I saw something similar to those in this script when I read it. I had a small idea of what [director Mitchell] was evoking, but the thing is: making a movie is so much different from watching the completed thing. There’s very major pieces that you aren’t able to see as a performer until it’s finally put together.

Paste: You worked with Adam Wingard on The Guest, and I love Wingard—he’s one of the best young horror directors out there. How did that compare to working with David Robert Mitchell on It Follows?
Monroe: There was definitely no planning involved in making two horror movies; I read The Guest script and thought it was hysterical and scary and amazing. I had watched You’re Next to get a feel for his style of an entertaining, referential horror movie and see how that female lead was portrayed. Neither movie is your typical take on the horror genre. Then while I was on The Guest I got the script for It Follows, and I wouldn’t have particularly been looking for that specifically, but they’re each so unique. I’m not loving the horror movies these days; it seems like the bigger ones are trying too hard to be something specific and marketable.