FOLLOWERS is about three women (Revell Carpenter, Molly Edelman, and Gigi James) who are attacked by fans in masks after their livestreamed hiking trip attracts obsessive viewers. A year later, one of the girls sold her story to Netflix, another seems to have moved on, but the last is still grappling with what happened. Feeling a bit estranged from each other after a year apart, the friends decide to go on a weekend getaway, and it’s during this trip that one of them asks permission to sell their story as a movie. But just before they can decide whether or not that’s okay, members of the masked group who attacked them last year returned to finish the job.
The premise for FOLLOWERS feels timely everyone’s so obsessed with their online personas these days that they try to capture every experience they have in photos and posts, it stands to reason that all that information could be used against us by someone with enough motivation and mania. Half jokingly, sometimes when I’m out of town I’ll post a photo or comment and then be like “oh no did I just tell people I’m not home and my stuff is unguarded?,” so FOLLOWERS taps into that fear and has tech-savvy stalkers do just that with an influencer although in this case it’s much worse than having your TV stolen. She ends up being brutally attacked. And it does get at one element of horror in obsession well here in reacting very differently to the attack, these three girls represent three different reactions anyway. One gets over it fast forming through social media again within days, one ignores thinking about anything else entirely because she moves in with her boyfriend immediately afterward.
That said, FOLLOWERS is really full. It runs an hour fifteen minutes yes only seventy five minutes which doesn’t leave any time for getting invested in these characters or this story. The first 30 something minutes is the initial attack, where we meet these girls. Then the second half of the movie is just re-meeting them as they have different reactions to that attack, again, which takes up a lot of time. That leaves about 20 minutes for a final attack; not great! This ends up feeling like one of those movies where it’s so short and someone dies so quickly you’re like “oh I guess anyone could’ve died at any point” in other words, it doesn’t hit. And then the twist revelation that follows is very much an “oh” rather than an “OH,” making for a two-part finale that left me wanting more (not in a good way) both times.
I don’t think FOLLOWERS is a bad movie, but I feel that if they had spent another fifteen minutes to heighten suspense and get us more invested in the characters it would have been much more impactful. It has some moments of gory home invasion and stalking, but we don’t have time to care whose house these masked maniacs are breaking into. The stalkers’ makeshift masks are chillingly effective and make them seem even scarier.
FOLLOWERS is not a found footage film as the trailer might suggest, it uses elements but is still shot traditionally. I think this would’ve been so much better if it were found footager because then it could’ve been even more compelling and leaned into online obsession themes. Ultimately while watching FOLLOWERS was entertaining, by the end credits I felt like my time had been wasted.
Watch FOLLOWERS (2024) For Free On Putlocker.