Lurker: Who Stalks the Stalkers? This Psychological Thriller Does

By Chris Knight

Rating: A-

Films about stalkers and obsession tend toward on-the-nose titles like Crush, Watcher, Creep or, well, Obsession, and Stalker.

Lurker is thus, right from the title card, a refreshingly original take on the genre.

What does it even mean to be a lurker? In modern parlance, it’s a relatively neutral term for one who observes an online community without taking part or contributing. It’s not an obviously dangerous activity, but the potential is certainly there. And lurking is literally a step away from stalking.

Meet Matthew (Théodore Pellerin), wide-eyed, sickly-pale, working a go-nowhere job as a clothing store clerk. His life takes a turn when the retailer is visited by Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a one-name-only up-and-coming singer.

Matthew pulls up Oliver’s favourite song and blasts it over the store speakers as a musical shibboleth, though he craftily denies knowing who Oliver is or what he does for a living. In the space of a few bars, he’s got an invite to attend the artist’s show that night, and to come backstage. He’s in.

What follows is entertaining and disturbing in equal measure. Matthew finagles his way into Oliver’s entourage, first by making himself useful — there’s a montage of him cleaning dishes and doing laundry — then by proving to be indispensable. He convinces Oliver that a rising star needs a documentarian to curate and catalogue his life, and appoints himself to the position.

Writer/director Alex Russell knows just what to reveal, and which elements to hide from the viewer or delay through clever editing and the occasional elision of time and narrative logic. He’s also a deft hand at plunging us into the self-contained world of a musician’s sycophantic inner circle, then pulling back to reveal its vapid nature.

Case in point: Matthew quits his day job, reimagining himself as a visual artist on a quest to find his creative potential. And yet when he joins Oliver’s crew on a trip to London, the official at passport control is having none of it. “Unemployed,” she corrects him bluntly, cutting off his stuttering explanation of his life’s work.

Russell also knows how to play tug-of-war with our sympathies. Matthew may at first strike viewers as a little lost, bullied by Oliver’s more established cronies, and given the Joe-jobs no one else wants. But over time we begin to suspect he might be following a master plan to achieve his own fame, or at least yoke himself so tightly to Oliver that if one’s star rises, the other’s cannot fall.

It’s nail-bitingly difficult to watch, especially as Matthew grows more bold in his actions, and Oliver starts to realize (too late?) what a monster he may have let into his life. But it’s worth noting that Oliver needs Matthew — or at least his type — almost as much as Matthew needs him. In the symbiotic relationship of stardom, it can be difficult to distinguish predator from prey.

Russell makes some great sneaky choices in his movie. I was tickled to learn that Matthew’s grandmother is played by Myra Turley  who also had a small role in 2014’s Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy’s fantastic obsession-thriller, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Oscar nominated for its screenplay.

He also misses a few beats. The female characters are fewer and less developed than they should be, given the prevalence of women both in the music industry and as consumers of the product. And his score stumbles twice with its repeated use of the 1967 hit “I’m Your Puppet,” which feels at once anachronistic and too much a commentary on the action.

But these are minor quibbles. Lurker is a great, grimy portrait of the dark side of stardom, portraying someone who has been sucked into its maw. “Everyone around you is exactly the same as me,” Matthew tells his idol in a rare moment of candor. “I just want it more. And I’m better.”

Lurker. Directed by Alex Russell. Starring Theodore Pellerin, and Archie Madekwe. In theatres August 29.