The Price of Getting Noticed

Read Time:7 Minute, 47 Second

MOVIE REVIEWS
Starsuckers
–

Genre: Horror, Comedy, Thriller
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 26m
Director(s): Brett M. Butler, Jason G. Butler
Writer(s): Brett M. Butler, Jason G. Butler
Cast: James Alex, Jersey Anderson, Manon Ens-Lapointe, Steven Hobé, Jacob Stickles
Where to Watch: shown at FrightFest 2026

RAVING REVIEW: STARSUCKERS is a wonderful dark comedy about celebrity worship, and writer/directors Brett and Jason Butler are smart enough not to put all of the blame on the celebrities. The people doing the worshipping are every bit as important to the joke as the people doing the worshipping. Chuck and Eileen may just be ordinary people lucky enough to spend a weekend with their idols. The film is far more interested in what admiration does to someone's judgment once proximity to fame begins to feel like an opportunity. So I’m intentionally avoiding talking about one of my favorite parts about the film, because I think it adds such a unique bit of flair to the stylization; I want everyone to experience it as is!

James Alex plays Bjorg Everglow, one half of a celebrity power couple alongside Manon Ens-Lapointe's Sasha Nightshade. Even the names prepare the audience for the level of reality we're dealing with here. These aren't celebrities that are supposed to feel like documentary subjects. They're exaggerated creations living within a sphere of reality they created themselves, surrounded by the assumptions, privileges, and expectations that come with being treated as more important than everyone around them.

Chuck (Jacob Stickles) and Eileen (Jersey Anderson) have won the chance to join Bjorg and Sasha for an exclusive weekend retreat. It's exactly the sort of experience designed to sound priceless because normal people are never supposed to have access to it. The appeal isn't necessarily what happens during the weekend. The appeal is being able to say it happened to you.

That gives the Butler Brothers plenty to play with before STARSUCKERS has to become threatening on any level. Chuck and Eileen don't just admire these people. They understand Bjorg and Sasha because of the public identities they've consumed, creating a relationship that feels intimate to them despite being largely one-sided. Meeting them requires reconciling those carefully maintained personas with the actual people standing in front of them. The joke becomes more uncomfortable because Bjorg and Sasha understand exactly what that relationship is worth.

Alex and Ens-Lapointe have the more immediately entertaining roles, leaning into the artificial confidence of people accustomed to having others pay attention whenever they enter a room. Neither performer needs to make the celebrity couple likable; people beg to like them. Their appeal comes from confidence, appearance, access, and the suggestion that everyone else should feel grateful simply to be in the same room.

Ens-Lapointe is especially effective when Sasha's public-facing side starts colliding with something colder. Having previously worked with the Butlers on THE LAST ANNIVERSARY, she seems comfortable with the way they move between conversation and behavior that's pushed well beyond expected boundaries. Sasha can be funny, unsettling, ridiculous, and cruel without all of that feeling entirely disconnected.

Alex approaches Bjorg with the same understanding that too much confidence is part of the character. There's an amusing emptiness behind certain celebrity behaviors in STARSUCKERS, where things that sound important become increasingly hollow if anyone stops to think about it. Bjorg has spent enough time being this person that the distinction between personality and branding barely matters anymore.

Stickles and Anderson have a more difficult assignment because Chuck and Eileen need to function as an entry point without becoming passive victims waiting for the famous people to reveal themselves as awful. The screenplay gradually builds on that assumption. Celebrity culture requires an audience, and the Butlers are much more interested in the transaction between idol and admirer than in delivering another story about rich people being terrible.

Anderson gives Eileen enough determination to keep her from being overshadowed by the personalities around her. Stickles similarly finds moments when Chuck's fascination begins to expose qualities that have little to do with fandom. Their relationship creates another layer to the story, because the weekend isn't just about how they see Bjorg and Sasha. It's also testing how they see each other.

Steven Hobé's Belvedere adds another eccentric presence into the mix without upsetting the film's deliberately small circle of personalities. STARSUCKERS benefits from keeping the focus narrow. The more time these characters spend together, the clearer it becomes that nearly every interaction involves one person acting a specific way for the other.

That's where the satire is strongest. The film isn't really arguing that famous people are all monsters. That's too easy, and we've seen enough versions of that story. What interests the Butlers is the puzzle surrounding fame. The need to remain visible, the willingness to turn every private experience into content, the audience's sense of ownership, and the social value created simply by having others know your name. Everyone is sucking something out of someone else.

Subtlety isn't always STARSUCKERS' strong suit, which is also where the movie can become less effective. Once its intentions are clear, the satire occasionally moves from exaggeration more into caricature, and there are moments when the screenplay seems worried that the audience might miss a point that wasn't especially difficult to recognize in the first place. That's particularly noticeable because the quieter discomfort is often funnier than the more aggressive commentary. Watching somebody excuse bizarre behavior because a celebrity is responsible for it can say more about fame than another jab at influencers or status.

The shift toward horror really lets the film dive into a different kind of excess. What begins as awkward fascination becomes manipulation, psychological warfare, and eventually violence, with the film becoming more ridiculous as everyone's motives come into focus. STARSUCKERS draws heavily on a tradition of satire that doesn't mind becoming unsightly to make its argument. The Butlers aren't trying to make this about realism once the weekend starts to fall apart.

The film's independent nature is evident, though rarely in ways that undermine the premise. Brett and Jason Butler have spent years making features outside the traditional studio system, and STARSUCKERS uses that experience well. Instead of attempting spectacle beyond the production's resources, they lean on performances, character dynamics, increasingly uncomfortable conversations, and carefully controlled absurdity.

STARSUCKERS doesn't need to look like the world it's mocking. It needs to understand why people want into that world so badly. Chuck and Eileen sometimes function more effectively as parts of the satire than as fully developed people. Bjorg and Sasha's deliberately heightened personalities can make their eventual behavior easier to anticipate than the movie probably intends. The film has several surprises in how events unfold, but its view of fame is established early enough that the general direction isn't difficult to predict.

What makes STARSUCKERS so enjoyable is that nobody gets to stand outside the joke. Celebrity culture isn't presented as something created entirely by influencers, actors, musicians, or wealthy people hungry for attention. Fame only has value because somebody else wants to see more of it. The star needs the follower, the follower needs the star, and both can convince themselves they're getting the better part of the deal. By the time blood enters that mix, STARSUCKERS has already made its point.

STARSUCKERS is an appropriately mean piece of independent genre filmmaking. It's funny without turning into a straight comedy, violent without becoming dependent on gore, and exaggerated without completely losing sight of the very real behavior underneath it. At 86 minutes, it gets in, ruins a weekend, takes several good swings at celebrity obsession, and gets out before its targets feel too easy to hit.

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[photo courtesy of SUBSTANCE PRODUCTION, TINY CABIN PICTURES]

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