The Influencer Project, 2026.
Directed by Mike Nybroe.
Starring Chiara King, Luca Storm, Mike Nybroe, Jazmine Summer, and Alexandre Willaume.
SYNOPSIS:
An influencer travels to Copenhagen for a documentary about her online fame, but when an obsessive stalker begins tracking her movements, she must confront the terror and reclaim her power.
Teaming up with actual influencer Chiara King, the aptly titled The Influencer Project from director Mike Nybroe (co-writing alongside Anders Jon and Lars Andreas Pedersen) is half a solidly realized mockumentary thriller-like concept and commentary on parasocial relationships with creators gone dangerously unhinged, and the sheer over-the-top stupidity that it, admittedly, teases, or perhaps threatens, to become.
There is a rather grounded section in the middle involving bringing in a highly trained security detail to keep this influencer safe from a stalker proven to be within her vicinity multiple times, all while texting some horrific messages that simply don’t make any sense in the context of the actual motive that comes into play. That’s the problem with the film; it wants to be realistically insightful and upsetting about the abuse popular social media content creators, especially women, face on the daily, but it can’t resist its worst tendencies to shift into something more like The Blair Witch Project by way of Scream.
The immersion is shattered, making way for comical horror, with livestream commenters pointing out each and every horror movie cliché, which is both an amusing idea but not what this movie should be doing. Again, this is serious subject matter that could have, and at times does, make for something chilling in an all-too-real way, but it becomes the most outrageous version of itself.
Apparently, the title comes from the fact that someone behind The Blair Witch Project is involved here, although even from perusing IMDb it’s hard to say who, since it’s certainly not the director or screenwriters themselves. Nevertheless, this is undeniably a smart conceptual spin on found-footage horror, and not only because it follows an influencer before anything creepy and invasive happens.
A documentary crew contacts Chiara King to film her on vacation in Copenhagen doing the usual influencer schtick, but with round-the-clock access and encouragement to be fully herself in front of viewers. It doesn’t necessarily make complete sense that she would go live while the documentary crew is filming (wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest for the documentarians who most likely want exclusive material for their film?), and there is never any sense of who she actually is aside from chasing followers. And yes, that’s another commentary point, but one that has been done to death by now.
Unsurprisingly, she has learned that exaggerating fear inside supposedly haunted houses draws impressive viewership, and she is comfortable using it to her advantage. Aside from that, there are some basic tips in the ADHD world of TikTok, such as keeping clips tightly trimmed so there is talking in every fraction of a second, lest someone get bored and skip to another video. There are also other truthfully amusing observations that come with the territory, such as that it’s always the videos one least expects to take off that do numbers.
For a while, it’s all gravy with enticing brand sponsorships and meetups, until a mysterious follower in a medieval chain-link mask going by the username KingSlayer (sadly, it is not Jaime Lannister) DMs something abhorrent that can’t even be said in this review, while snapping a photograph indicating that he has a very clear view of her in person. So begins a cycle of panic, fighting back (one idea is to have her followers bully him back and try to get him banned from the platform), escalation, and questioning whether the documentary filming should continue.
As already mentioned, The Influencer Project only works when that terror feels grounded in the everyday realities of being someone on social media who actually gets engagement whenever they post, faced with legitimate violent threats. The third act derails all of that for cheap horror thrills and absurd twists. It’s a failed project.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
