There are films that thrill, films that entertain, and then there are films that slowly peel back the skin of human desire until all that’s left is the raw, quivering truth beneath. Lurkerdoesn’t chase shocks or cheap spectacle; it creeps into your conscience, whispering in places you didn’t know were vulnerable. It lives in the spaces between admiration and obsession, ambition and self-erasure, loneliness and the violent hunger to be seen. What begins as a story about a young filmmaker attaching himself to a rising musician transforms into something far darker—a study of complicity, performance, and the quiet savagery of longing.
Théodore Pellerin gives Matthew the kind of inner life that most actors would drown in. He doesn’t play him as a villain but as a reflection—uncomfortable, familiar, painfully human. Matthew arrives in Oliver’s orbit like a moth pretending it isn’t drawn to the flame. Archie Madekwe’s Oliver is magnetic in that disarming way success often is: charming, focused, and surrounded by an ecosystem of industry parasites that drain him while smiling. And yet he lets Matthew in. That’s important. Lurker isn’t a stalker film—it’s a mutual transaction built on unspoken desperation. Matthew needs purpose; Oliver needs to be documented, validated, immortalised. Both are users, both are addicts—one hooked on fame, the other on proximity to it.
What makes the film so unsettling isn’t what Matthew does—it’s how naturally he does it. He doesn’t break in; doors open for him because he knows how to look harmless, essential, useful. The horror is social, psychological. This is about the performance of authenticity in a world where surveillance is intimacy and vulnerability is a brand strategy. Matthew studies Oliver the way an animal studies its prey—not out of malice, but survival. Every smile is rehearsed. Every word is calibrated. Every room he enters becomes a stage, and he understands the role he is meant to play: the quiet friend, the creative shadow, the emotional witness. He is the kind of danger that slips past moral alarms because he never announces himself as a threat.
The social commentary here cuts deeper than the genre expectations it flirts with. Lurker understands the silent violence of clout culture, where genuine connection has been replaced by strategic attachment. It explores how art becomes a ladder, how people become access points, and how success breeds a soft form of sociopathy—not the cinematic kind, but the everyday emotional numbness that lets someone consume others in the name of ambition. The film isn’t wagging fingers; it’s holding a mirror to a generation that has turned ‘networking’ into a blood sport.
What truly anchored me was the descent. Not a descent into madness—that would be too easy—but a descent into clarity. By the final act, Matthew isn’t becoming someone else; he’s becoming the person he has always been, stripped of apology. The darkness doesn’t come as a twist, but as an inevitability—a slow bloom of everything he worked so hard to conceal. And as moral boundaries dissolve, we’re left with a sickening question: was he always this darkness waiting to happen, or did we silently root for him until he took it too far?
The craft is lean but sharp—quiet cinematography that never chases beauty for its own sake, sound design that pulses with psychological unease, scenes that linger uncomfortably long because that’s exactly how obsession feels: extended, sticky, unavoidable. Every creative choice serves the spiral.
Some films entertain the mind. The best ones haunt the conscience. Lurker is a precise, provocative character study that plays out like a beautifully executed trap—one you don’t realise you’ve walked into until the air gets thin and escape feels impossible. It doesn’t need shock tactics to disturb you; it just holds your gaze and lets you witness a soul curdling in real time.
I didn’t just admire this film—I felt complicit in it. And that, to me, is the mark of something rare.
Easily one of my favourites this year, and I will do what I can to make sure I get as many people as possible to watch this absolute gem! You should to.
9/10
Add comment
Comments