Writers and directors Brett and Jason Butler slice and dice parasocial relationships with Starsuckers. Out of FrightFest, the Influencer Horror film destroys the barriers between who celebrities are online and who they are in real life. Blood sprays; body parts; and a taut, thorny script sink pierces like daggers to the heart. Especially in recent years, filmmakers have littered horror with epic takedowns of social media, brain rot, and our collective doomscrolling. With its top-tier campiness and delicious homoerotic undertones, Starsuckers joins Superhost, the Influencer films, and Cam as among the best offerings.
Influencer couple Bjorg (James Alex) and Sasha (Manon Ens-Lapointe) climbed to the pinnacle of pop culture not by being genuine. Their on- and off-screen lives tangle together to create the two most obnoxious people you’ll ever meet. If you’re not exploiting your tears, you’re not doing it right. Quite literally, Sasha sells her tears as healing lubricant and a way to feel closer to her light. It’s a little on-the-nose, but Starsuckers knows exactly what it is—an addicting romp and skull-crushing view on modern life. Through its use of narrator Belvedere (Steven Hobé), hired by Sasha and Bjorg to narrate their lives, the film offers epically brutal commentary on fan delusion, celebrity worship, and how society thrives off blood, sweat, and tears these days.
For a fan sweepstakes, Sasha and Bjorg select young couple Eileen (Jersey Anderson) and Chuck (Jacob Stickles) for an exclusive stay at their lavish home. The influencers shuffled through thousands of video submissions, but it was Eileen and Chuck’s heartfelt clip that sealed the deal. Upon arriving, even Eileen, arguably Sasha’s most devoted fan, notices something is not quite right. But the experience of a lifetime won’t derail her enjoyment of growing closer to her favorite celebrity. Brett and Jason Butler invite the viewer into the super glam lifestyle of the rich and undeserving before the foundation begins cracking. The weekend getaway soon erupts into a chaotic bloodbath, and Chuck and Eileen discover if they have the survival skills to live until dawn.
The filmmaking team slathers on soap opera theatrics with perfectly plump lip gloss. Alex explores the loathsome Alpha Male stereotype through Bjorg’s comically absurd masculinity, whereas Ens-Lapointe’s Sasha lands into female self-suppression of true identity for the sake of views, likes, and shares. There’s little that Brett and Jason Butler don’t rip to shreds in the screenplay in the most obvious ways possible. In 2026, there is no time for subtlety. Starsuckers also notably studies social media as an unstoppable contagion that poisons the very idea of living.
Brett and Jason Butler’s Starsuckers elicits plenty of laughs through its silly, self-aware satire, but the audience might have to keep from crying about the truth of our lives now. Social standing comes into more distorted focus as platforms such as TikTok and Instagram feel like the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror. There’s no escaping our digital selves, but Starsuckers is a blaring alarm that we might already be too far gone. More than anything else, the film is a damn good time.
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