Lurker Review: BFI London Film Festival 2025

A celebrity attracts the wrong sort of attention in Lurker

It seems like a dream. A famous musician comes into the store where you’re working a lowly retail job, likes your vibe, invites you their show, and suddenly the two of you become best friends. Except that’s not quite the truth, is it? In Lurker, Matty (Théodore Pellerin) is a fan of up-and-coming star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) and carefully engineers the perfect meet cute. By playing it cool and acting like he hasn’t even heard of one of LA’s most famous faces, he soon wrangles himself an invite backstage.

But Matty isn’t content with a simple meet and greet; he wants to make it into Oliver’s inner circle. By posing as a photographer and videographer (despite having no idea what he’s doing) he soon becomes a fully-fledged member of the celebrity entourage. He forces a wedge between Oliver and his old friends, scares away any potential new faces, and insinuates himself into every part of the star’s life. When it seems like he might lose his new found position of favour, he takes drastic measures to keep himself in the in crowd.

Lurker is the debut feature from writer/director Alex Russell, whose previous writing credits include Netflix’s Beef, and The Bear. While people have been making movies about celebrity obsession for nearly as long as they’ve been making movies at all, Russell takes a distinctly modern stance with Lurker, highlighting the peculiar nature of fame in the social media age.

By being in Oliver’s entourage, Matty soon starts to become insta famous himself. People are stopping him in the street, asking for pictures, saying they aspire to be just like him – when his only creative output is ‘‘hanging out with a famous person.’’ His manipulative and conniving nature is obvious to the audience from the early stages of the movie, but there’s a remarkable switch when he’s given the confidence that comes with the ego boost of personal fame.

Pellerin is chillingly excellent in the role – when things are no longer going Matty’s way he achieves this genuinely unsettling dead eyed stare that’s reminiscent of the slimy creepiness of Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler. Madekwe, in a small way repeats some of his character traits from Saltburn – Oliver is a privileged arsehole, uncaring of those around him, he makes people fight for his favour without even noticing. Yet Madekwe also captures the deep insecurity of a fledgling musician, and it’s this need for reassurance that allows the harmful relationship to take root.

If Lurker has a fault, it’s that it just doesn’t go hard enough, only flirting with a Kathy Bates Misery level of intensity rather than fully embracing it. Matty does do some really awful things – but they all happen off screen and we are only shown the reaction to them, which feels like a cop out. Considering how convincingly Théodore Pellerin portrays the obsessed sociopath, it would have been welcome to see him really let loose.

The end does take us to some unexpected places, though, showing that even if you think you know how these celebrity stalker stories always end, you really don’t. Not just a lesson about the perils of fame and parasocial relationships, Lurker turns up the psychological manipulation factor to eleven in a way that’ll have you absolutely squirming in your seat.

Lurker is screening as part of the BFI London Film Festival; a cinema release date is expected later this year

Check out more reviews from the 2025 London Film Festival here