Screenbound Pictures and Blue Dolphin Films have announced that Followers, a  supernatural horror comedy, will be in cinemas from 18 March 2022.

The film was written and directed by Marcus Harben and produced by London-based Parkhouse Pictures, who previously brought us Anna and the Apocalypse (UK, John McPhail, 2017) and The Kindred (UK, Jamie Patterson, 2021).

The plot summary is as follows:

‘Jonty, a failing influencer with an ambition to reach over a million followers, will stop at nothing to become famous. A new start at university brings with it hopes of a resurgence in his popularity when a demonic presence appears in his student house. Jonty decides to stream his and his housemates’ experiences with this supernatural entity to gain the fame and fortune he’s most been craving. But at what cost?’

And here are some more details from the press release:

‘A darkly comic satire on today’s influencer generation, Followers combines horror with humour in the tradition of Get Out and Black Mirror putting a fresh new spin on found-footage movies. What starts as an hilariously bad YouTube video series develops into a warning to the world about a shocking new strain of supernatural serial killer.

After hosting its World Premiere at Frightfest UK in August 2021, Followers has been praised as “entertaining from beginning to end” (Horror Obsessive) and a film that “keeps the audience guessing” (Entertainment Focus) with “scares that work” (Starburst).

The film stars an “excellent” (Entertainment Focus) young cast of up-and-comers including Harry Jarvis (Netflix’s The Knight Before Christmas), Loreece Harrison (Misbehaviour, Black Mirror), Erin Austen (The Kindred, The Royals), and Daniel Cahill (Anna and the Apocalypse) as well as featuring Orion Lee (First Cow, Pixar’s Turning Red), stalwart of the British film and TV industry Nina Wadia (Eastenders, Strictly Come Dancing 2021 and the upcoming Netflix series The Sandman) and one of the UK’s biggest social media influencers, YouTuber and actress Tanya Burr (Sky’s Twist, Venice at Dawn).

For writer/director, Marcus Harben, this insightful chiller, which dissects our fascination for the transience of fame and social media, was set to be the first of many feature films. Sadly, this was not to be, as Marcus’ life was cut cruelly short by cancer in early 2021 after post-production had ended. Shortly before he died, Marcus described his motivation for creating Followers:

“I’ve always been obsessed with the ultimate puzzle of all found footage horror movies. We get who is shooting the footage – but who is cutting it all together? I’ve also been obsessed with the rise of the Influencer, especially when an actual reality star became President. I was able to combine those obsessions with Followers. I had billions of ideas that took a while to prioritise, but we ended up with a twisty, turny, spooky, darkly amusing little supernatural horror movie.”’

I’ll be making a special effort to catch this one, and I urge you to watch the trailer below, because it looks very funny indeed.