Over the last few years, there’s been a wave of “influencer” horror movies with actors that play YouTube hosts and various other social media influencers. Some films in this subgenre are better than others, such as Deadstream and Superhost. Murmur is another film in this ever-growing field. While writer/director Mark Polish‘s film doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking, it’s still an entertaining 90 minutes, especially for fans of found footage and influencer horror.

The movie follows a group of social media influencers that are mostly tight-knit friends, though cracks emerge. Shortly into the feature, they argue about how best to draw more people and clicks to their YouTube channel. Eventually, they decide to test out an experimental app/game called Murmur. Initially, the game looks like a blend of Animal Crossing and Pokemon GO. They venture into the Redwood National Park to play it, and initially, all seems harmless. When they turn on the app through their phones, they mostly encounter semi-cute animals and small green plants that try to bite them. In short, nothing initially poses much of a threat.

However, the game turns more dangerous as it progresses. Threats evolve from plants that bite to full-on monsters. One of the film’s main flaws is that most its characters feel too indistinguishable. The influencers include Angel (Cyrus Arnold) and Albert (Garrett Bales), who pushes hard for the group to play the game and film it, despite resistance by a few. Other characters include Buster (Jonathan Charles), Maze (Colin Ford), Kenzie (Megan Lee), Tiger (Logan Polish), Zach (Brandon Wilson), and Roxy (Francesca Xuereb).

No cast member is necessarily bad in their perspective role, but there’s really not much given to them in terms of the script to flesh them out. They all start to blend together. I kept wondering how this film would have been different if the cast was slightly smaller. That could have given the viewer more of a chance to know these characters better. That, in turn, would make the audience care about what happens to them.

Meanwhile, some of the jerky camera angles, especially when the influencers run through the woods at night, breathing heavily, are certainly Blair Witch Project-influenced. These sequences feel a bit dizzying, but not unfamiliar to found footage fans. I will give this film credit for attempting to do something unique with the found footage/influencer subgenre. The app/game plot isn’t really something that we’ve seen before, at least not at this level.

Murmur lacks memorable characters and drags at times.  That said, the feature is an enjoyable enough 90 minutes and another entry into the ever-growing subgenre of influencer horror. The aspect of a killer app/game does somewhat distinguish it from its contemporaries.