The Influencer Project Review: Disappointing Found Footage Horror Had Plenty Of Potential

The Influencer Project has the ingredients for a timely found footage horror movie, but weak scares and shallow themes keep it from making an impact.

Published Oct 1, 2026, 12:16 PM EDT

Josh is a film critic and journalist with over nine years of experience in the entertainment industry. Entering the field at just 17 years old, Josh went on to make his own website, The HoloFiles, and social media brand Star Wars Holocron, the most followed Star Wars fan account on Twitter/X.

A member of both the Chicago Indie Critics and the Hollywood Critics Alliance, Josh has covered major industry events including Star Wars Celebration and, most recently, CinemaCon for ScreenRant. His work has appeared in outlets such as Game Rant and Comic Book Resources (CBR), and he has been featured in publications including the BBC and The New York Times.

Found footage has been part of horror for decades, but even if there are examples of earlier films with a lasting legacy, such as 1980's Cannibal Holocaust, it feels like the genre is still living through the wave set off by The Blair Witch Project. The movie's style, subject matter, and even the way it was marketed to become an urban legend in itself, seem to have presaged the way found footage horror would take hold in the social media age. Now, a new entry in this lengthy canon, produced by some of Blair Witch's original creatives, roots this methodology firmly in the world of TikTok and Instagram.

The Influencer Project follows Chiara King, a real-life influencer from the United Kingdom, as she travels to Copenhagen to shoot a new story about her online fame. While there, she encounters an online social media user, this time appearing in real life as a masked stalker, who harrasses her, threatens her, and makes her life a living hell. As all this is happening, a film crew is shooting King’s every move, documenting what’s happening to her.

The Influencer Project Gets Close To A Thoughtful Message

A simple description makes The Influencer Project sound like virtually every other social media-fueled found footage horror movie: a lead character desperate for fame and online validation quickly realizing what’s actually important in life when the scares start to kick in. All of that is true here, but amid that horror is the potential for a surprisingly thoughtful and personal message from its star.

The Influencer Project opens with the line “Influenced by real events,” and King herself has gone on record to discuss encounters she’s had with stalkers since she developed an online following. Although the actual plot of The Influencer Project is fictional, the bare-bones premise of a young woman plagued by terrifying strangers is still true. That makes it hard to swipe this movie away entirely; at its core, it remains a story that all too many people, women especially, will relate to.

The Influencer Project flirts with these themes, but never fully commits to tackling them head on...

Adding to (or perhaps complicating) that is what the film has to say about influencers and the role they play in their own stalking cases. These internet personalities are often labeled as attention-seeking, and, as such, any notion of stalking or harassment is flippantly described as exactly what they were looking for. The Influencer Project flirts with these themes, but never fully commits to tackling them head on; the film is much more concerned with setting up its scares than debating the extent to which influencers like King are responsible for their own predicaments.

Yet, there exist some notable themes throughout, even if they remain surface-level: online fame, the desire for attention and validation, and how both of these can play into stalking cases. Unfortunately, these ideas are hardly looked at honestly in The Influencer Project. The movie often reverts back to the line of thinking that influencers are misunderstood, surprisingly earnest people. Whenever it gets close to tackling some tough questions, it backs away.

The Influencer Project Stumbles In Its Horror

Ultimately, many viewers will brush aside the potential that the movie has when it comes to commentary on this modern profession. Instead, this new film will be judged on its horror – at the end of the day, that’s what audiences are here to see. The Influencer Project comes up short in this regard, as virtually every attempt to create a frightening situation (or moment) falls completely flat. There’s simply nothing scary about this movie, and this failure becomes even more apparent as it attempts to ramp up the tension in the third act.

Not only that, but there’s very little to be entertained by, either. Too much of the film’s runtime is spent on King speaking to her audience about random sponsorships, and if the movie isn’t focused on that, it’s probably showing a poorly executed chase sequence in which King and her crew attempt to catch the stalker. Neither is engaging, and both highlight the staleness that plagues The Influencer Project, which, given the potential of this premise, is a great shame.

The Influencer Project releases in theaters on Friday, October 2.