Lurker (2025) by Alex Russell: A debut film that turns fandom, obsession, and the hunger to belong into one of the year's most uncomfortably relatable thrillers
- dailyentertainment95
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- 7 min read
Why It Is Trending: The Dark Side of Wanting In
Parasocial obsession is the defining anxiety of the social media age, and Lurker arrives as its most precise cinematic diagnosis yet. Alex Russell's debut feature landed with strong critical traction — Metascore 78, 90 critic reviews — and has been building a genuine word-of-mouth following since its August 2025 release. MUBI's active engagement with the film, including a dedicated podcast episode in February 2026, signals that it is finding its second-wind audience well past its theatrical window. The discomfort it generates is not the kind audiences forget quickly.
Elements Driving the Trend: Obsession Has Never Felt This Familiar
Parasocial Culture as the Film's Core — At a moment when fan obsession, stan culture, and proximity-to-fame anxiety dominate social media discourse, this film captures that dynamic with surgical, uncomfortable accuracy.
Metascore 78, Critics Solidly Behind It — Strong critical consensus across 90 reviews positions it as one of the more respected indie thrillers of 2025, giving it lasting credibility beyond its release window.
MUBI Is Actively Amplifying It — A dedicated MUBI podcast episode in February 2026 confirms the film has found a home with the platform's taste-driven audience, extending its cultural visibility well into 2026.
Théodore Pellerin Is a Breakout Moment — His performance as Matthew is generating the kind of specific, enthusiastic praise that launches careers — audiences who discover him here will follow him forward.
Archie Madekwe Post-Saltburn — His casting directly connects the film to Saltburn's cultural footprint, attracting an audience already primed for stories about class, obsession, and dangerous proximity.
The Cringe Factor Is the Hook — Intentional secondhand embarrassment and social awkwardness are driving genuine audience reaction and discussion online — discomfort is the film's most shareable quality.
Debut Director, Immediate Credibility — 2 wins and 10 nominations for a first feature signals industry recognition that elevates the film's cultural standing significantly.
Music Industry as Setting — The rising-artist world gives the film a contemporary, visually alive backdrop that resonates with audiences deep in music culture and creator economy discourse.
Real Concert Footage, Authentic Energy — Concert sequences filmed at actual parties with real crowds give the film a documentary texture that separates it from polished studio thrillers.
Specialty Release, Overperforming Its Footprint — $687K worldwide on a limited release is modest in absolute terms but reflects strong per-screen performance for its category.
Theatrical Run Complete, MUBI Home — The film has moved past its August 2025 theatrical window and is now living its most important cultural life on streaming.
Not a Franchise, Not a Remake — A fully original psychological thriller from a debut filmmaker is increasingly rare, and that originality is itself a selling point for the audience this film targets.
The film is not trending through marketing — it is trending through the cultural accuracy of its subject matter and the specificity of its discomfort. Platforms like MUBI are its natural home and most effective amplifier. The industry should note that psychological thrillers built around contemporary social anxieties — parasocial relationships, fame proximity, online identity — have a long streaming tail because their subject matter stays relevant. Investing in debut filmmakers with this level of tonal precision is low-risk, high-credibility programming.
What Movie Trend Is Followed: Obsession Thriller — Peak Relevance, Indie Precision
The obsession thriller is not a new genre, but its current iteration — rooted in social media culture, parasocial dynamics, and the creator economy — feels urgently contemporary. Lurker arrives at the peak of this trend's cultural relevance, when audiences are living the anxieties it depicts in real time. It is a smarter, more grounded take than most films in this lane, which gives it staying power beyond the initial conversation. The indie format allows it a realism that studio versions of this story could never sustain.
Macro trends — Creator economy culture and the mainstreaming of parasocial relationships have made the psychology of fandom and fame proximity a dominant social conversation globally.
Implications for audiences — Viewers recognize Matthew's behavior not as monstrous but as an amplified version of impulses they have felt themselves — which is exactly what makes the film so unsettling.
Industry trend shaping — Psychological thrillers anchored in contemporary social anxieties are proving more culturally durable than genre thrillers built on plot mechanics, encouraging indie distributors to invest in character-driven discomfort.
Audience motivation — The desire to see their own digital-age social anxieties reflected and examined on screen — without judgment or easy resolution — is driving engagement with this film's specific audience.
Other films shaping this trend:
Saltburn (2023) by Emerald Fennell — An outsider infiltrates a wealthy inner circle through obsession and performance, establishing the template this film consciously builds on.
Funny Games (1997) by Michael Haneke — Proximity and intrusion weaponized into pure psychological dread, the godfather of the uncomfortable-access thriller.
Ingrid Goes West (2017) by Matt Spicer — A social media obsessive insinuates herself into an influencer's life, the most direct predecessor to Lurker's specific cultural territory.
The obsession thriller rooted in digital culture is not going anywhere — if anything, its cultural relevance is still accelerating. Platforms should prioritize acquiring films in this lane as their subject matter compounds in relevance over time. The indie format is the genre's most credible expression, and debut filmmakers are its most authentic voices. Lurker is the proof of concept the industry needed.
Final Verdict: The Most Uncomfortable Film About Belonging You'll See This Year
Lurker is not really a thriller — it is a mirror, and the reflection is the uncomfortable part. Russell has made a film about the specific hunger of wanting to be close to greatness, to matter by proximity, to be chosen — and he refuses to let the audience off the hook by making Matthew simply monstrous. Its cultural role is to name something the social media age has made universal but rarely examines honestly. The discomfort it generates is the point, the product, and the legacy.
Audience Relevance — Everyone Has Been Matthew, a Little The film's most unsettling achievement is making Matthew's behavior recognizable rather than alien — the line between admiration and obsession turns out to be thinner than anyone wants to admit.
Meaning — Belonging Is the New Obsession Lurker reframes the stalker narrative entirely — Matthew is not driven by desire for Oliver but by the desperate need to exist inside someone else's significance, which is a far more contemporary and widely shared motivation.
Relevance to Audience — Gen Z's Anxiety, Perfectly Diagnosed For a generation that grew up measuring self-worth through social proximity and online visibility, this film is a brutally accurate character study of where that psychology leads when it tips over the edge.
Performance — Pellerin Is the Reason to Watch Théodore Pellerin delivers one of the indie circuit's most talked-about performances of 2025 — magnetic, anxious, and chillingly controlled in a role that could easily have collapsed into caricature.
Legacy — A Debut That Announces a Career Alex Russell has made the kind of first film that gets studied alongside Saltburn and Ingrid Goes West in conversations about obsession cinema — its ambition and tonal precision are rare for any filmmaker, let alone a debut.
Success — Strong Where It Counts 2 wins, 10 nominations — Metascore 78 — $687K worldwide on a specialty release — IMDb 6.8. Performing at the top of its category with a streaming life that has already begun to outrun its theatrical footprint.
Insights: Lurker is a film whose cultural relevance will only grow as parasocial culture becomes an increasingly dominant feature of everyday life.
Industry Insight: Psychological thrillers anchored in social media anxiety are among the most streaming-durable genre films available — platforms should treat Lurker as a long-tail acquisition with compounding relevance rather than a one-season title. Debut filmmakers with this level of tonal control are the industry's most undervalued asset. Audience/Consumer Insight: The film's core audience — digitally native, culturally fluent, deeply invested in music and creator culture — are among the most active recommenders on Letterboxd, X, and film-adjacent social spaces, making word-of-mouth the film's most powerful distribution tool. They recognize themselves in Matthew, which is exactly what drives them to talk about it. Social Insight: The Saltburn comparison is circulating widely and doing significant discovery work for the film — audiences who connected with that film's obsession dynamics are being funneled directly toward Lurker through organic social recommendation. The MUBI podcast amplification in February 2026 has given it a second wave of cultural visibility that is still building. Cultural/Brand Insight: The film's music industry setting, authentic concert footage, and creator-economy themes make it a natural cultural touchpoint for brands operating in music, streetwear, and digital culture spaces — its aesthetic is already aligned with the visual language those audiences trust.
Lurker will be remembered as the film that diagnosed parasocial obsession before the mainstream caught up with how serious a subject it had become. The entertainment industry should treat it as a template for how indie psychological thrillers can achieve cultural permanence through subject-matter precision rather than budget. Original, socially diagnostic storytelling from debut voices is the specialty market's most credible and most underfunded lane. Investing in it is not a risk — it is a responsibility.
Summary: The Fan Who Went Too Far — and the Mirror He Held Up
Movie themes: Obsession, belonging, and the razor-thin line between admiration and intrusion — the film explores what happens when the hunger to matter overwhelms every other instinct.
Movie director: Russell writes and directs with the confidence of someone who has lived inside this subject matter — his debut is precise, atmospheric, and refuses the easy thriller shortcuts.
Top casting: Pellerin carries the film on a performance of controlled, creeping unease — Madekwe brings the magnetic volatility of someone who cannot decide whether to be adored or left alone.
Awards and recognition: 2 wins, 10 nominations across the festival circuit.
Why to watch: For anyone who has ever followed someone's career a little too closely, wanted a little too much to be in the room — this film knows exactly what that feels like and is not kind about it.
Key Success Factors: Where most obsession thrillers rely on plot escalation to generate tension, Lurker builds its dread entirely through social discomfort and psychological accuracy — which makes it far harder to shake.
Where to watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/lurker (US), https://www.justwatch.com/au/movie/lurker (Australia), https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/lurker (Canada), https://www.justwatch.com/de/Film/lurker (Germany)
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