With the rise in popularity of social media content videos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and OnlyFans, the dangers of privacy intrusion, for both the content creators and those that appear in the content, has skyrocketed over the last few years. Video content that has only lasted a few seconds or minutes, has upended people’s lives, and in extreme cases, has resulted in things like job losses and death threats.
Sylvia Caminer (An Affair of the Heart) shines a spotlight on these dangerous themes in her new movie Follow Her, which is written by Dani Barker, who also plays the lead role of Jess. Aside from Barker, the film stars Luke Cook (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Eliana Jones (Hemlock Grove), Mark Moses (Platoon), and Cristala Carter (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin).
The movie has won 20 awards throughout the film festival circuit, including Best Horror Film at the MidWest WeirdFest, Best Actress at the Albuquerque Film & Music Experience, and Dark Matters Feature at the Austin Film Festival. The movie was also nominated for 30 total awards, including Best Graveyard Shift Feature at the Nashville Film Festival, and the American Independents Competition at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
Follow Her details the life of Jess (Barker), a young woman who, while searching for her passion and a full-time career in writing, has found success with secretly filming her interactions with strange people in response to their oddball online job listings. Jess records the strangers without their consent, and has their faces blurred before uploading the videos online for clout and payment. In one of Jess’ most risqué and successful videos, the censoring software fails, and she accidentally reveals the person in the video to her vast amount of followers.
Instead of removing the video, she leaves it up, gaining more money and followers. A few days later, Jess accepts a listing asking her to help a writer complete an erotic thriller story he’s working on, and she joins him at his secluded farmhouse. From there, things don’t go as expected.
Follow Her does a decent job keeping the audience guessing about what’s coming next. While the direction of the plot is a bit obvious, the writing takes a roundabout way to get there, cutting down on the predictability of things. We all know Jess shouldn’t go to this isolated farmhouse with a strange man for a random job listing, but money makes us all desperate in a capitalistic society, so at least the story is believable.
The way the story unfolds isn’t like your typical thriller, either, which breathes some refreshing life into a genre that tends to play out the same stories over and over again. By the time you get to the reveal of Follow Her, you’re asking yourself “What just happened?”, instead of saying “I saw that coming.” Kudos to Dani Barker for some exceptionally creative writing.
Unlikable Characters
A major deviance that Follow Her has from a lot of other thrillers in the same vein is the fact that none of the characters, including the protagonist, are likable. While of course, you don’t want anything horrible to happen to Jess, it’s difficult from the get-go to root for someone that takes pleasure in taking financial gain from the embarrassment of others without their consent.
Jess’s actions can be seen as mean, uncaring, and downright creepy, but so can the actions of those that may want to teach Jess a lesson. This is one of those movies where the audience doesn’t really care who loses, as long as someone does, which takes away from the thriller aspect, by lowering the emotional stakes.
Granted, both Barker and Luke Cook (in the role of Tom Brady… but not that Tom Brady) play their characters extremely well, which is evident by the many acting nominations and wins that both actors received throughout the festival circuit. They just play characters the viewer can’t invest themselves in.
A Convoluted Twist
While Follow Her had a great start and excellent pacing for the most part, the reveal and twist of the final act muddies the outcome quite a bit. The ending is unique to the film, but essentially throws out all the intensity Follow Her had built over the previous hour, especially between the two leads. It’s one of those moments that not only somewhat works against the social commentary of the film overall, but also damages the rewatchability of it.
A great thriller is able to work in a reveal that the viewer can think back on and wonder if they missed anything. Unfortunately, Follow Her falls more under the one-hit-wonder category of the thriller genre. The film is a good one-time watch, and a great starter feature for both Sylvia Caminer and Dani Barker, but it probably won’t be looked at as long-lasting in viewers’ minds. We still recommend giving it a go.
Follow Her releases June 2, 2023 in select theaters and VOD from Quiver Distribution
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