IT Follows: Ending Explained + What The Monster Represents | Full Film Analysis

Whether it was the amazing synth soundtrack or the phenomenal feeling of dread that you feel during the film, something about this movie always stuck with me.

Throughout this, I’ll be breaking down the main plot of the film, it’s ending and giving my thoughts on what the mysterious monster represents.

This is full spoilers ahead, so if you don’t want to know anything about the movie yet then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

For everyone else, I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this video, I hope you enjoy it now sit back, relax and let’s get into my ending explained breakdown of IT Follows.

IT Follows Plot Recap

IT Follows centres around Jay, an adolescent female that, after having sex with a boy named Hugh, learns that she has been infected with a sexually transmitted demon or STD that slowly follows her throughout the film.

If the demon manages to catch up to her it will kill her and then begin making it’s way onto Hugh before it works its way down the line, killing those until it reaches the source.

Jay learns that the curse can be passed on to others through intercourse but doing so will doom them and if IT manages to kill them then it will once more put her in the crosshairs. The creature is invisible to all those who are not infected, however, it does have a physical body and with the help of her friends, Jay is able to seemingly defeat the creature once and for all.

In the end, Paul, a close friend of Jay that has always desired her decides to make a pact and the two couple up, passing the curse back and forth between one another. We end on an ambiguous shot of the two hand in hand, both clearly in a world of despair but forced into a relationship in order to survive whilst the creature may or may not still be stalking them.

So did they kill the creature and what does this final shot mean?

Did The Creature In IT Follows Die?

Well, firstly I don’t believe that they did, at the beach though it was damaged, the monster still kept coming and due to this, the swimming pool plan in my mind won’t really make a difference beyond delaying it. The Entity has no fear of confrontation and therefore we can surmise that it is unable to be harmed. Thus, this defeat is a teens dream and though they have found a way to make the creature manageable it will eventually come back around like all the std’s that people who thumbs down this video have.

It’s not a good idea and is probably going to cause more complications down the line that will eventually lead to further problems.

This is confirmed by the director, David Robert Mitchell, who when discussing the film with Vulture said the following:

“It’s the stupidest plan ever! It’s a kid-movie plan, it’s something that Scooby-Doo and the gang might think of, and that was sort of the point. What would you do if you were confronted by a monster and found yourself trapped within a nightmare? Ultimately, you have to resort to some way of fighting it that’s accessible to you in the physical world, and that’s not really going to cut it. We kind of avoid any kind of traditional setup for that sequence, because in more traditional horror films, there might be a clue that would lead them to figure out a way to destroy this monster. I intentionally avoided placing those. Instead, they do their best to accomplish something, and we witness its failure. It’s probably a very non-conventional way of approaching the third-act confrontation, but we thought it was a fun way to deal with it.”

In regards to the figure stalking Jay and Paul, he stated:

“We had a couple variations on it — I think we had some where he was really far back, and then some where no one would ever miss him — but we settled on the one where he’s there, but not too close. It allows people to make up their own mind of what it means.”

IT Follows Ending Explained

To me, it means that this will forever linger over their relationship and they can either mature to the point that they will be equipped to deal with it or it will cause them to turn on each other. Though Demons aren’t often a problem in a relationship that develops from your late teens into your 20’s it can be viewed more as a metaphor for other things that pop up.

Teenage relationships are simple, carefree and often feel like none stop fun. However, upon graduating School, moving out or having to step into the Real World, they often fall apart due to neither member of them being equipped to deal with the problems that they now face.

I know from personal experience that in my early 20s, though my relationships started off well, as a couple we simply were not compatible as people to work together as one in order to tackle actual issues which eventually caused us to separate. This is the situation that Jay and Paul now find themselves in and they must either mature and get through the problem or fall apart because of it.

But what exactly is the monster?

IT Follows Monster Explained

Well, it’s difficult to fully comment on what exactly this shapeshifting entity is, however, I believe that it is a manifestation of sexual assault and the stigmatism that surrounds this. Jay experiences assault early on in the film, however, she confronts this and after opening up to her friends and finding a caring sexual partner, is able to overcome the threat of it.

Though we learn little in the film about the previous victims of the Entity, from what information that we do get, it’s clear they tackled it in the opposite way to jay. Hugh moved to a dilapidated building and passed it on without discussing it.

Jay on the other hand, freely discusses it and this allows her to confront the issue head-on without judgment.

Greg, who willingly takes on the demon from Jay does not really seem to believe in it which he uses as an opportunity to have sex with Jay, he’s not really invested in her story, unlike Paul who actually wants to help with her problems. This leads to Greg being killed and ultimately Jay is left in the same situation as she was before passing it on.

There comes a big turning point in the film where Jay has the opportunity to sleep with a group of men on a boat, however, I think that she realises this is wrong and returns home. This is opposite to Hugh and likely the ones before him who passed it on and thus lead to more misery.

In the finale of the film, the creature appears as Jay’s father and personally, I think that this represents a parents disapproval that may centre around the subject of their child’s sexual activity. By killing the monster as it is in this form, Jay is able to fully shed the weight and become a grown woman, no longer overseen by the potential disapproval of her parents. She is someone who now realises the importance of someone who is willing and wants to help and thus sleeps with Paul.

This leaves us with the thought that we should not be ashamed of things such as this and should openly seek out help from those that are able to properly give it so that we can find the strength again to grow.

Abuse is something that will follow you your entire life and some people who are abused end up going on to abuse others, thus passing it on similar to how the creature is passed from person to person.

Though this is never cemented in the film, it is confirmed to me by the many appearances of the creature which appears as a woman who has clearly been assaulted and is urinating on herself, to a fully naked man and more.

This leads into my other theory which deals with what happened to Jay’s father.

It’s clear that he is absent from the character’s lives and though Jay’s mother is obscured throughout the majority of the film, the very minor parts that we do see of her show her as an alcoholic. This leads me to believe that Jay’s father killed himself and this could be because he was sexually assaulted and could not live with it.

Juxtaposing this, Jay confronts it and thus is able to move on from what her father could not.

Alternative Theory

There’s also an alternative theory that I’ve seen which makes a lot of sense and basically flips my prior theory on it’s head. This is to do with the stylistic choices of the film that could be signifying where the characters actually are.

What’s excellent about It Follows is that there is an undercurrent throughout the entire thing that something is not right in the area. This is purely down to the fact that the time period of the movie is impossible to pin down. There is a futuristic clamshell e-reader and yet there are vintage television sets, cars, photos and kitchens.

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