Headscratchers / It Follows

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Is there any good reason we should believe "it" died at the end? It seems like the ending is supposed to be ambiguous, and "it" did bleed A LOT when Paul shot it, but why? Was "it" supposed to be made vulnerable by water somehow? Water was a recurrent theme throughout the movie, but there was never anything to imply that "it" was somehow weak to water. (Aside from it knowing not to get into the pool to attack Jay, but that raises the question of why they thought that would work in the first place).
  • There is the fact that "It" stops to destroy Jay's backyard above-ground pool, which might seem like just "It"s tendency to sadism until you realize that throughout the movie, "It" never damages anything except its currently targeted victim, anyone who actively tries to interfere with "It", or any barrier that happens to be between "It" and its victim. If "It" is vulnerable when in water (and many demons and spiritual entities, not just vampires, are described in folklore as being unable to cross running water), then destroying anyplace near its victim where "It" might be trapped, vulnerable and rendered powerless gives a reason for this otherwise inexplicable break from the pattern.
  • Who says it isn't just vulnerable in the first place? When Jay first shoots it at the beach, it drops to the ground for a minute or so, which meant it obviously isn't Immune to Bullets. Sure, it pops back up again, but the bullet clearly did some measure of damage. If it hadn't, It would have just kept walking. Also, we see it get whacked by a chair when it grabs Jay, enabling her to get away, so it can be hurt, and if it can be hurt, then it can die. Maybe it just takes more than one gunshot to kill it. Remember, Paul takes several shots at it.
  • Check the background in the very last shot of the film.
  • It's never explained whether the figure in the last shot is It or just some person walking on the sidewalk.
  • Were the viewers intended to believe It was gone? This Troper never had that impression, though maybe that comes from generic horror Genre Savvy, where the villain never dies. The characters don't seem to believe It is gone. Paul is out shopping for streetwalkers, for example.
• What was going on with the scene where she swam out to the boat? Did she have sex with one (or all three?) of the men to buy herself some time?
  • Yes. Or at least, maybe. What you described is heavily implied to be what took place offscreen.
  • After doing the first one, the others don't count, do they?
  • According to the creator, oral and anal sex counts as sex for the entity. If she indeed had sex with all at the same time (there were three guys, after all....) then perhaps the entity would have had to go after all of them instead of just one. But then again, that's WMG.
  • I always assumed the three guys, seeing a young girl with a cast on her arm and a faraway look on her face swimming out to them to have sex, immediately remembered "do not put your dick in crazy" and just gave her a ride back to shore. I mean, it came after her pretty damned quick.
    • If Jay didn't warn the guys about "it", then it certainly wouldn't have taken much effort for the entity to kill them.
  • The script clarifies what happens. She's about to swim out and have sex with them, but changes her mind and doesn't. The three guys are all safe, if the scene is still canon even if we didn't see it.
    • The screenplay available online has a few other differences with the finished film. The fact that they chose to not film the whole sequence seems to be a choice to leave it ambiguous and up to the viewer to decide what happened with those three guys.
  • Innocent me thought that she was convinced that It couldn't cross water and was just trying to get into a boat.
  • While it's definitely possible she had sex with those guys, it seems unlikely that they wouldn't show it if that was the implication, especially as Jay angsts over passing it on to anyone else a lot otherwise. But YMMV.

• Why doesn't anyone whip out Google Maps and look up the walking directions between sightings of "it"? It seems to travel at a REALLY predictable pace. It seems fairly simple to just look up how far "it" has to travel and divide that by "its" walking speed and predict exactly when "it" will get to their current location and they'll have to move.
  • The story is in an Anachronism Stew. It's not clear that Google Maps even exists in the world of the film.
  • That's a lot of effort to go through every time you relocate. You would have to keep track of time as well as location - forgetting to recalculate for a few minutes could easily mess up your predictions. It's a lot simpler - if possibly more tense - to just keep an eye out for It, since It doesn't seem to accelerate just because It was seen.
  • I might be way off here, but I was under the impression that It can simply teleport itself to a new place if the victim travels too far away, and that the reason why it sometimes takes a while for It to appear is part of the aspect of tormenting/toying with the intended victim. You'll never know if it will be here in two minutes or two hours or two days. Word of God says you wouldn't be safe even if you were an astronaut and travelled to outer space, so It must be able to teleport, right?
    • Word of God was that It couldn't teleport, and that It would find some way to follow you into space. So long as no one comes after you and you and your spacecraft have the fuel you'll need, you could in theory leave It with no choice but to watch all Its targets die before you do.

• How on earth does anyone who's infected manage to go out on a date and have sex with someone in order to pass the curse on? Obviously a date isn't required, as shown by the girl who picked up Hugh in the bar, Jay sleeping with (as implied) the guy(s) on the boat, or simply just paying for sex. But Hugh has gone on multiple dates with Jay. And the first date that we see them on, they go see a movie. A movie! You know, sitting in a dark theatre, surrounded by people any of whom could try and kill you, limited vantage points and any potential escape possibly hindered due to the volume of the crowd. And we know, from the attack at the beach, that "it" doesn't have any qualms about attacking in front of others, so why on earth would Hugh, who knows "it's" following him, think that would be a good idea? Furthermore, why didn't he just do what had been done to him and pick up some rando in a bar? It would be much faster and, let's be honest, Hugh was decent looking so he shouldn't have had much trouble finding someone to sleep with. Instead he sets up shop in a house rented under a fake name and takes Jay out multiple times. All this does is increase his chance of "it" reaching him.
  • It's implied that he has tried exactly what you say and, for whatever reason, the newly-cursed fell prey to It before long. Building up a trust with Jay meant she was more likely to take his advice at face value and not dismiss it as the rantings of some random one-night-stand.
    • In support of this: isn't it suggested that the newly-cursed person was Annie, the girl in the beginning? Jay finds the picture of her with Hugh/Jeff in Jeff's fake house. So it would make sense that Hugh got It, realized he had to pass it on, passed it on to Annie, and then in the time Annie was evading It, Hugh met Jay, gained her trust, and realized he had to tell her if he was going to stand a shot at surviving.
  • I don't think Hugh/Jeff thought It was after him anymore, and that's why he was so leisurely with Jay at first. He was trying to get some normalcy back into his life. But when he saw the girl in the yellow dress (i.e. It), and he realized that Jay couldn't see her, he knew that It was coming after him again and he had to think quickly to get rid of it again. I think he went out with Jay sincerely, but when It resurfaced in his life he had to pass It onto Jay because she was the most convenient person at the moment.
    • He would have been able to see It even if It was no longer after him, though.
  • Also just on the note of convenience/proximity, moving around seems to delay the creature, even if only for a little while. Isn't that partly why he rented the house - because he was far away from his parents' place and needed somewhere to crash/give an address to Jay? So that would've bought him some time, even if it wasn't a lot.
  • No matter how good looking a guy may be (unless he's exceptionally handsome), it can still be really hard to pick up as a male. Even with plain or ugly looking chicks depending on the circumstances. Unfortunately it's just how the world and gender dynamics work. Most tropers and other people should be able to vouch for that. Some of us have gone months or even years between one night stands. What's important is that you have game. And game kinda gets thrown off with the constant threat of death lurking around the corner, it kinda gives a reek of desperation you know? So whether or not he had managed it, establishing a girlfriend was a more dependable solution, and for the reasons other tropers have noted above.
  • You are underestimating current world's promiscuity, even a guy less atractive than him probably can have sex more often than not, but he always has the option of paying for sex.
    • One thing in favor of "It" is that unless the cursed guy was really rich to begin with, paying for sex becomes increasingly difficult as being perpetually on the move would drain your finances and make it hard to find new sources of income.

• Secondly, after the showdown at the pool Yara is in the hospital for her bullet wound. Isn't it standard hospital protocol to call the police when a gunshot victim shows up? How did they manage to explain that one? Or is it merely a case of Adults Are Useless?
  • The police may have been called, but as no one died Paul wouldn't tell Yara chose not to press charges.
  • Heck, they could have even told the truth (or a version of it). Their friend had recently died, they had his gun, they thought they saw something creepy, and an accidental firearm discharge wound up with their friend hurt. Paul might not even be formally charged for that, though he'd at least get a pretty stern warning (and the gun would almost certainly be confiscated).

• What would happen if someone were to attempt to capture 'It'? Think about the rules that we learn: 1. It will -walk- tirelessly toward its target. 2. It physically exists. We know this because it is obstructed by and can interact with physical objects. 3. It can't be seen or heard by those who aren't under its curse. So what would happen if a cursed person were able to trick It into walking into an inescapable metal container?
  • Maybe they did. "It" is shown to be very strong. What's to say that someone did trap it and it simply broke out?
  • "It" displayed Super-Strength when it was attempting to get to Jay and the others on the beach — when it couldn't open the garage door it simply blasted a giant hole in it to climb through. Maybe it just does whatever it needs to circumvent or destroy whatever is in its way. It threw a rock at Greg's window because nothing more was necessary.
  • As Hugh/Jeff stated at the beginning, you can easily run from 'it' but you can never trick it. That's why the entity didn't dive into the pool after Jay.
    • But are we to assume It is omnipotent? If someone was willing to sacrifice themself in order to get It to enter an inescapable situation, could it be beaten? Ostensibly it will do whatever it needs to do to get to its victim, so if that victim is in a trap with one (closable) entrance and is willing to die, then in theory it might be possible. Maybe something that puts It into a state where it is constantly weak or would take a long time to escape. Something like a metal box you could bury or throw into an active volcano or whatever... Although granted it's not exactly like they had one of those just chilling around.
    • A more feasible option might be to try trapping It at the bottom of a sufficiently deep pit and then, before It can climb out, burying It in quick-drying concrete (both achievable on any major construction site, with help and preparation). In principle, all the Super-Strength in the world won't help if the creature's unable to get any leverage to apply it, and while It presumably wouldn't die from that, trapping It long enough for all current targets in the chain to die naturally would in theory break the curse. (But the whole point of It is that it runs on nightmare logic, so even these measures would most likely fail somehow — perhaps It can cause an earthquake that would free Itself.)

• Had Jay slept with Greg, Greg Kelly, Kelly Paul and Paul Yara (or in any guy-then-girl order), they all would see 'it'. Why didn't they? If everyone did everyone else there would be a lot more awareness.
  • Also, can 'it' be transferred between homosexuals?
    • Yes, it can be; Word of God confirmed it.
  • Not an answer, but you're referring to It by proxy, where all the protagonists sleep with the only girl protagonist as a seal of their comradery against "It''.
  • I was wondering if you could get a willing SWAT team/army squad to screw each other, always put the current target at the back of the team and see what they can do to detain the now-visible-to-the-entire-squad "It".
  • They weren't desperate enough to put themselves on the chopping block.
  • We are talking of a thing that rapes you to death; you really would have to be a very good friend to put yourself in that kind of danger.
    • They could have given It back to Jay at the end so It was still going after her, the others would just be able to see it so they wouldn't be in the situation in the pool, with them just shooting at random.
    • They definitely could've, but even giving It back to Jay would have only helped them as long as Jay stayed alive; then they would've all been back in danger. No matter how much they passed It on, they would still literally be in danger for the rest of their lives if other people on the chain died.

• If Jay was so paranoid, why did she spent such long spans to look around?

• How did Hugh\Jeff figure it out? He wasn't sure how he got it.
  • Notice how the receptionist looks at the year book a little while longer after Jay departs the school (when she's trying to figure out who Hugh is)?
  • It looks like Jeff is either lying, or he's in some sort of denial. His mentality is inconsistent. At the movie theater, he's apparently amazed she can't see the girl in the dress, yet later he seems to know everything.

• Didn't Hugh/Jeff mention he can still see It after passing it to Jay? If he can, what was It doing hanging around Hugh/Jeff? Shouldn't It have been trying to target Jay instead? Hugh/Jeff mentioned there was only one of It, so how and why could Hugh/Jeff see it when it was targeting Jay?
  • "Didn't Hugh/Jeff mention he can still see It after passing it to Jay?" Yes, Hugh/Jeff can see It after passing It on. He does confirm that both in words and in actions when he showed It to Jay soon after they had sex and he drugged her.
  • "If he can, what was It doing hanging around Hugh/Jeff?" It wasn't around Hugh/Jeff: After passing It on to Jay, any scene that has Hugh/Jeff. He is able to see It but It is still coming for Jay.
  • "Shouldn't It have been trying to target Jay instead?" Indeed It is - that was also established in the scene after Jay wakes up after the chloroforming - It was definitely not fixated on Hugh/Jeff and It walked past him heading for Jay who was tied to the chair.
  • "Hugh/Jeff mentioned there was only one of It, so how and why could Hugh/Jeff see it when it was targeting Jay?" Those are apparently just the rules. Perhaps that's because he is still a potential victim or maybe that's because once touched by It, you can forever see it. Whatever the case, it's still internally consistent - once cursed, you can see It, if you pass on the curse, you just divert It's attention for a while.
  • We see later on that Jay can still see it when it's going after Greg, so apparently if you're on the list at all you can still see it, regardless of whether or not you're its current target.

• Why did It assume the form of an old woman in a dressing gown when It first came after Jay at her school? According to Hugh/Jeff, It chooses a form that would allow It to get close to It's intended victim, but this form is so blatantly out of place in the school that Jay immediately begins running for the hills, as one would expect. How did It think that It would get close to her looking like that? This is especially jarring, considering that when it was stalking Hugh/Jeff, It assumed the form of a perfectly nonthreatening theater patron that wouldn't have set off any alarm bells had Hugh/Jeff not realized that Jay couldn't see It. Why didn't It use similar subtlety with Jay (for instance, making Itself look like a student in her class)?
  • "According to Hugh/Jeff, It chooses a form that would allow It to get close to It's intended victim" No, It very clearly doesn't do that. Or rather, not consistently. Throughout the movie It chooses various forms, some subtler than others but not always - some were really creepy humans, some were downright bizarre, like the naked guy on the roof. Sure, some looked OK, but at one point It took the form of another person who was literally within view, instead of the one that just left. Whatever It's motives and thinking are is unclear, if I were to guess, I'd say it may not even understand the forms choosing them more or less at random, or it may, in fact, just be using them to cruelly mock Its victims. In fact, it's very possible It could be using different tactics for different victims.
  • So the answer is that Hugh doesn't really understand how this thing operates? I guess that's fair enough.
  • Actually it took that form because that is Jay's grandmother. In the scene before that one, when Jay's mother talks about her, the camera pans to a series of pictures on a wall, one showing a younger Jay with two elders, presumably her grandparents.
  • I think when you look at the range of forms It takes, It does seem to have a tendency to take on overtly creepy or scary forms, which raises the possibility It's deliberately toying with its victims like a cat playing with its prey, rather than looking for the quickest or most efficient way of killing them.
• A complete hypothetical question, but... What would happen if someone used more unsavory ways to get rid of the curse? Would it not count if the other person was dead or would the curse end? Alternatively, what if Jay slept with Hugh again, passing it back to him? Would it form a closed loop or would "it" move on to the other victims again?
  • If I had to guess, a dead person wouldn't count.
  • At a guess, given the Cosmic Horror Story vibes at play, it seems unlikely any of the methods mentioned on this page would defeat "it" for good.
  • Word of God says both parties have to consider it sex for it to count. A corpse can't consent, much less think about what they consider sex, so no, it wouldn't count.

• As a rule, It can only move at a rather slow but steady walking pace, so it makes sense that it can catch up to nearby victims rather quickly... But when the characters drive up north to increase distance, it seems that they're only there for a couple of days before It catches up. Except the drive from Detroit to the UP is roughly seven hours, and if we're being generous and doubling that for walking time, it should have taken It almost six days to arrive. Bizarrely, It doesn't even show up at the hospital when Jay is there incapacitated (before she has sex) without showing up despite already being somewhat local. Did It start jogging when no one was looking? Hitch a ride on the top of a car?
  • Could also be that everyone involved misunderstands "its" means of locomotion. Perhaps "it" can warp itself closer to the victim if it moves too far out of range or takes some means of transportation (being Invisible to Normals, it could easily sneak into anyone's car. Even yours!) It could also be that "it" is more of a phenomenon than a single entity, and that "it" automatically generates a new "instance" of itself near the victim occasionally. (I have read too many SCP Foundation articles.)
    • I assumed that's how the whole thing works. Word of God says one wouldn't be safe even in outer space, so presumably the entity can teleport itself when it so chooses. I've got no answer as to why it didn't show up while she was at the hospital, though.
    • Or it could be that the creature, clearly not being stupid, would realize that it would use alternate means to reach its target if necessary. We don't know, perhaps it simply boards a bus/train/plan/boat unnoticed and silently sits in a corner if it needs to. Likewise, if you travel to the ISS, it could just wait until the next spaceship flies there and just take a ride on it.
• So you can interact with it, even though it's Invisible to Normals. They can even put a sheet over its head as shown. However... try spraypaint? Paintball gun? Manacles? Wrap it in a tarp? Inject a GPS tracker? Lock it in a room and alert the authorities? Nope. (Because then we wouldn't have a good horror movie. of course.)
  • It burns on contact, is Nigh-Invulnerable, heals itself quickly, is super strong, and never stops moving. What are the tactics mentioned above going to do against that?
    • The Authorities getting proof of a supernatural entity, would be helpful. It can hit the news, the people who have passed it on can come forward and request protection or at least notification when the person they passed it to dies. The Center for Disease Control would treat this like AIDS, trying to track down patient zero.
    • The above is assuming that the news, police, and Center for Disease Control (as well as other authorities) would even begin to believe the victims' story as true. Especially considering that anybody who isn't infected with It can't see it, it's highly likely nobody in authority would believe in It unless infected with It themselves so they can see it.

• Couldn't the curse just be ended if all of the targets are killed or are celibate until their natural death? Of course, this would take characters that are smart, selfless, disciplined and teamwork-oriented to pull it off. In the same vein, if "It" is truly as effective at killing its targets as the movie seems to imply, wouldn't that just shorten its own lifespan?
  • If the target was celibate it means the target did not have sex. No sex, no curse so wouldn't be a target. Also the fix was when its current target is dead it always goes for the one before it. The way It hunted it most likely did not care if its current target died without It's efforts. If It's current target died it went to the previous one, if that one died without It's actions the one before that and so forth. If they could get a list of all its previous surviving victims and killed the lot of them. Then without any prior victims to follow that could end the curse.
    • Unless that's what It wants.
    • Strictly speaking, "celibate" means unmarried. The movie never shows what would happen if It killed Victim Zero, nor does the movie explain how and why It came to exist. Even if It killed Victim Zero or Victim Zero died by some other means, It might very well pick a new victim by some unknown method and according to some unknown criteria and get right back to stalking.

• How did It get to the top of the house? The established rule was it can only walk, along with crawl through holes, but it would still on steady ground. Last time I checked climbing up a house/tree is not walking.
  • Everything they know about It is just supposition. Officially, It can get past any obstacle, which would include a sheer cliff, so yes, It can climb.
    • What throws people off is that many Hollywood horror scripts can be... somewhat lazy, with nobody lying or even speaking a mistruth unless its made obvious and sources facts about the supernatural being like, on every street corner. Thus, when people only familiar with Hollywood horror watch something like this, the characters "knowing" things that aren't strictly true can go over their heads.
  • I think that the roof scene is made deliberately to show us that the entity isn't just walking, more likely it appears in random places somewhere near the victim. Also it moves too quickly and manages to keep up with characters driving far away. I mean, if moving to another continent helped to get rid of 'it' even temporarily, shouldn't have anyone at least tried doing so? It would probably take months to walk across the Atlantic. This could easily end the curse. Or if you passed it to an astronaut, would he/she be haunted anyway while in space? I suppose yes, they will.

• If Jeff thought the curse had passed on when he started dating Jay, why did he still give her a fake name and address?
  • ...because he'd kidnapped and drugged her? I dunno about where you live, but here that tends to be somewhat illegal. That whole "stay out of places with only one exit" thing doesn't work so well if you're in jail.
  • Jeff may have been using the fake name and house as an easy out if he ever needed it. Sleeping with Jay seems like it was a "Plan B" for him. Seeing how they didn't sleep together until after he saw It following him again, and the amount of masturbation he was obviously doing, makes me think that he was purposely not trying to infect anyone else with "It" until he knew he had to.

• What would have happened if It managed to curse the LA and/or European porn industries?
  • Lots of news articles about an untraceable serial killer targeting adult performers and a mass exodus from those industries, would be this troper's guess.

• When Jay goes around in her car alone, why does she spent the night outside her car? I mean, It could have attacked her easily while she was sleeping.
  • It strikes this troper as entirely plausible that It only attacks while its victims are awake and can see It coming, to make sure the victim dies in the maximum amount of conscious terror and agony; note that the one time we see It close in on a victim who was asleep, Greg, the creature bangs on his door to wake him up first.

• Here's something that been bugging me after watching the movie again; if "It" can look like anyone, then what's the point of it being invisible to everybody except the people it's following?
  • If you start watching invisible people and acting strange accordingly, chances are you get locked away in a mental institution or jail and became an easy target. Besides we don't know the nature of the creature or its limits, it can be just its nature.
  • Plus, being invisible complicates things for anybody trying to help the current carrier of the curse.

• Why did it take so long for "it" to attack Greg?
  • He probably passed "it" to one of the girls he was having hamburgers with, which bought him some extra time.

• What happens if the person whom It is following dies some other way (i.e., in a car accident or suicide, etc.) Would the creature suddenly stop the cycle, or would it just go back to the person before?
  • Probably would go back to the person before, since it's unlikely no one at all decided to commit suicide just to prevent "it" from getting them.

• How did the very first victim of It know/learn exactly what they are dealing with, and how to combat it? I doubt It would sit them down and talk with them about the rules. Not to mention the issues with transportation as discussed down below. However It came to be, and unless the victim knew what was happening, It would only have the chance to kill that first, single victim, before they knew to have sex with another person. Then It would have to somehow start an entirely new chain. Again. Until someone somehow finally figured out the rules and extended the chain.
  • It's not stupid. It probably handled things a bit differently back then, maybe letting them live long enough to spread it unknowingly, or maybe it had a completely different ruleset, or maybe it's only acting the way it does now for kicks. Just like it says on the main page, straight from the creator's mouth, whatever answer is the most scary or unnerving, that's the correct one.
  • There's also the possibility that whoever initiated the curse (the gods, some witch, Chtulu, whatever) made "it" appear very far away from the original person, or after a time delay. This would allow a chain to build up before "it" starts to kill people, and thus the others in the chain could begin to figure out whats happening before it reaches them. Given enough people in the chain and enough time, people would figure it out.

• Why did Hugh/Jeff chloroform Jay and tie her to a chair? He didn't seem to actually have ill will towards her, though he was putting her in danger, it was only to save himself. He said that he wanted her to "know it was real", but that doesn't make sense. If anything, she'd be more likely to believe him if he explained it to her calmly; this way, she just thought he was insane.
  • "Now that we've had sex I'd like you to know that you'll be chased by a relentless monster that can take any form, only ever moves at walking pace, and is invisible to everyone else." She'd still think he's insane, just not violently so. Then It just walks up to her within the hour and brutally murders her.

• It threw Paul and left scrapes on his legs when he hit It with a chair, so It's clearly capable of hurting people other than Its victim, but then It didn't try to attack the others in the pool, even though they were getting in Its way and hurting It. What exactly can It do to other people?
  • The implication seems that it will only react to the most immediate of threats or hinderances, or if you're touching it. Hurting in through ranged means like guns or setting a trap seem to be loopholes in its self-preservation programming. What ever created it probably didn't want it leaving too high a body count, as that would bring unwanted attention and muddy its purpose.

• If the victim has a threesome (or moresome), who does It follow? There's only one It and It only follows one person at a time—is it just whoever happens to make sexual contact with the victim first, with the other person(/people) being safe by minutes? Or at least until that person makes sexual contact with the new victim?
  • I think it would be literally whoever was first. Once Hugh passes it on, he seems (temporarily) safe; it doesn't matter who he had sex with (if anyone) once Jay was cursed.

• It doesn't seem to be able to use vehicles, only go after you one foot. But what if you successfully crossed the ocean to get away from It? Would It be allowed to use a boat or plane then, or would It have to swim across the ocean to get you?
  • It's pointed out above that It's methods of transportation are vague. It might be able to teleport to get in the general vicinity of its target (because Word of God is that you are not safe even in outer space), but it also might just be able to discreetly board a boat and ride it over.
    • Word of God specifically mentioned that eventually the demon would find a way to reach you, so that kinda rules out teleporting.
    • And you just know if you got on a plane, as soon as it took off one of the passengers would get up and start walking towards you...

• The rules of Its invisibility are a little spotty. When we see it from Jay's POV in some scenes, notably the pool battle, it casts a shadow, but not when we see the area from the other's POV. That's somewhat forgivable, either as a production mistake, or It somehow existing on a different plane of reality, but if It has physical presence at all times, as shown by them throwing a blanket over It, why didn't it displace the water in the pool and leave a very visible outline?
  • "It" does make a visible splash when it falls into the pool, but presumably the ripples of the water "It" displaces are hidden the same way as its shadow. We never see it leave any footprints in the beach sand as "It" approaches Annie in the first scene, either, or when it approaches Jay as "Yara" up at Greg's cottage.

• If It truly is completely unstoppable and able to adapt to perfectly circumvent any obstacle in order to reach its target, why doesn't it do that all the time instead of just using only the sufficient amount of effort to get through any given situation? It clearly has superhuman abilities, so why doesn't it use those as a rule?
  • Maybe It has a limit to how much it can utilize those abilities in a given amount of time? Maybe that's why it moves so slowly and teleports only after the target moves out of a certain range? Maybe It's been on the hunt for so long that It is actually tired?
  • Or perhaps the damned thing isn't in a hurry, and even enjoys the thrill of the hunt more than the kill itself.
  • Maybe It isn't conscious or sentient, and is just some lower form of animal operating on instinct. It might be some form of psychic chameleon.
• We know that the demon kills by burning its victims with his touch, but the very first victim we see in the movie appears all broken and mangled, so what happened there?
  • Not to get too brutal or graphic, but I assumed it raped her to death. It killed Greg by raping him, and I assumed her leg got in that weird, unnatural position to snap off during the rape or when she tried to fight back.
    • It didn't rape Greg to death. It jumped on him, killed him by some method we don't see, and then just kind of dry humped him.
    • Mmm sorry but Word of God did confirm that It rapes to death, is just that the movie probably wasn't going to show it because it would be too graphic, is PG-13 if IIRC.

• How does the kill chain work if a previous victim has sex again? What I mean is, say Jeff had sex with somebody else (let's call her Betty) after he had passed the curse to Jay but before Jay dies. Would Betty be on the chopping block or can it only be paased by the current target?
  • The simplest explanation is that the curse is purely linear: there is only one target at any one time, and it's the first person the last target had sex with after becoming the target. Once Jay inherited the curse, Hugh/Jeff was perfectly safe for any other partner as long as "It" still hadn't caught Jay.