‘Followers’ Chattanooga Film Festival 2023 Review: Influencer Found Footage Delivers Mixed Messaging on Trauma
Matt Konopka
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Though a cornerstone of the genre, contextualizing trauma in horror is always a fine line to walk. If the filmmaker fumbles the message at the goal line, it’s game over. Look no further than the recent Smile for an example of a film that left many viewers walking out furious, despite an otherwise effectively terrifying narrative. Go ahead and plop writer/director James Rich’s latest feature Followers into that category of movies that mishandle their messaging so badly, I’m not even sure what the intention was in the first place.
In Followers, we meet a trio of best friends comprised of anxiety-riddled Sam (Gigi James), carefree Riley (Molly Leach), and influencer Heather (Revell Carpenter). Every year, they go on a hiking trip together, and every year, it goes off without a hitch. Until this time, when a killer donning a wolf mask shows up and changes their lives forever. Fifteen months after the traumatic event, Heather has made a docuseries about it to “inspire people” with their survival, a decision Sam is not a fan of, to say the least. When Heather invites the now estranged friends to spend the New Year’s weekend together at her boyfriend’s house, Sam sees it as a chance to get her life back on track. But a group of killers wearing the same wolf mask from a year ago has other plans.
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An apparent sequel to Rich’s previous film, Follower (which features the same three characters being stalked by a dollar store wolf mask-wearing killer in the woods), Followers’ first fifteen minutes is a lot. Taking a cue from the Friday the 13th remake, Rich packs an entire slasher film into the opening act by condensing Follower into a few short scenes (all with footage from that movie).
I can’t tell you if the intention here is to redo Follower a la Evil Dead II or a desperate attempt to fill screen time such as Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (I’m leaning towards the latter), but what I can tell you is that Followers wastes no time tossing the audience into a vat of horror tropes and CG blood. It’s a whirlwind of characters paying no mind to masked weirdos watching them from afar and conveniently dead cellphones…one that I would, to my surprise, come to miss as the film goes on.
Jumping forward after a mess of an introduction, we find Sam a year later and still suffering from the scars the killer left on her, figurative and physical. Everywhere she goes, it feels like men are watching her. Fear follows her like a relentless hound nipping at her heels. Outside of going to class, she holes up in her apartment to avoid the eyes of others. The only good thing she seems to have going for her is nice guy boyfriend, Todd (Jackson Jones).
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What’s refreshing about Rich’s approach to trauma here is that no one is telling Sam to just “get over it” as countless horror movie characters have done to those in her spot. Instead, we’re treated to some rather sweet moments in which Sam’s friends are supportive in ways that come off as genuine and warm. Heather could be portrayed as your average, vapid influencer—and I’m not saying she’s not that—but she projects understanding, even despite Sam’s obvious disapproval of the docuseries.
I love to see that. Far too many people, both fictional and real, who’ve survived terrible experiences are later told to “deal with it” and become an outcast if they don’t put on a smile or whatever others expect. Followers does show us the other side with Heather’s ignorant-as-hell, AR-15-toting, crypto-bro boyfriend, Gareth.
Michael Bonini plays the character with just the right amount of obnoxiousness for a good laugh or two at his expense. His role offers a nice juxtaposition to the others by demonstrating to the audience that how Gareth acts towards Sam is deserving of a knee to the crotch. Seeing that the filmmakers know better is also what makes the rest of Followers so disappointing.
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Once the killers arrive and Followers transforms into a You’re Next-inspired home invasion film (they even have crossbows), what little it has going for it is smashed to pieces. This group of misogynistic losers delivers abrupt and shocking violence, hammering home the unpredictable nature of men like this. Yet for as nihilistic of a tone as Followers takes, an odd blend of humor is mixed in that’s more jarring than it is funny. It’s tough to stay in the moment when these dudes are letting loose growls as intimidating as a newborn puppy.
What really cuts Rich’s film down, though, is a jumbled commentary that seems to suggest the horror of exploiting survivors in the “bankable genre” that is true crime survivor stories—Heather’s words, not mine—while also reducing Sam to just her trauma and implying a lack of agency or control for those like her. Followers becomes so frustrating in its mixed messaging concerning survivors that I’d pull my hair out if I had any left.
Toss in clunky camerawork, poor effects, and a script that struggles to build tension with some pointless mean-spiritedness, and Followers is a slasher you can give the same treatment as a blue check account on Twitter. Unfollow.
Followers screened as part of the 2023 Chattanooga Film Festival.
Summary
Followers is a slasher you can give the same treatment as a blue check account on Twitter: Unfollow.
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