After helping forever change how horror is told on the big screen with The Blair Witch Project – Il Mistero della Strega di Blair, Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale are ready to revisit the found footage formula. Their new project is called The Influencer Project, and instead of getting lost in the woods like they did in the 1999 film, it brings the nightmare into the hyperconnected world of social networks.
The news was shared recently by Fangoria, which also revealed the film's first poster and announced the new American release date: October 2, 2026.
From Blair Witch to Social Media Nightmares
The connection to The Blair Witch Project – Il Mistero della Strega di Blair goes beyond marketing. Sánchez and Hale are returning to a story built around the feeling that what we're watching might have actually happened.
At the center of The Influencer Project is Chiara King, a British beauty and fashion influencer who plays a fictionalized version of herself. She heads to Copenhagen with a documentary crew, aiming to show her audience the less polished side of her life and social media success.
But the project quickly takes a far more unsettling turn. As cameras and followers track her every move, someone else begins watching Chiara from a far more sinister vantage point. The presence of a stalker transforms what was supposed to be a documentary about online fame into something much closer to evidence gathering.
This is where the film seems to update the Blair Witch lesson: if in 1999 terror came from finding a videotape belonging to missing people, today that disturbing material could already be on our phones, in videos we post online, and in images we share every day.
Found Footage Built for the Influencer Age
The choice of Chiara King is deliberate. The influencer boasts over a million followers on Instagram and a solid presence on TikTok. The Influencer Project also marks her feature film debut.
This detail could become one of the most interesting aspects of the project. The line between real person and character is already blurred before the film even begins: audiences already know King's online image, while the film can play precisely on the difficulty of distinguishing what belongs to her public life from what was constructed for the story.
In other words, Sánchez and Hale seem to understand that found footage doesn't have to stay tied to shaky cameras and recovered tapes. In 2026, "found material" can be a vlog, a live stream, a vertical video, a phone recording, or a series of seemingly harmless content.
Behind the Camera: Mike Nybroe
The Influencer Project is directed by Mike Nybroe, making his feature directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Nybroe alongside Lars Ap and Anders Jon Petersen.
Production involves Hades Films and the Danish Point Neuf, with Sánchez, Hale, Alex Hertzberg, and Ahmet Zappa among the producers.
Filming took place in Copenhagen, a choice that distances the project even further from the forest imagery of Blair Witch, while maintaining the same core idea: taking an everyday setting and gradually transforming it into a trap.
The cast also includes Luca Storm, Mike Nybroe, Jazmine Summer, and Alexandre Willaume.
"Fear Is Always With You Now"
The conceptual heart of the film is probably captured in a reflection attributed to Sánchez and Hale during the project's presentation: thirty years ago, fear could be represented as a supernatural force hiding in the woods; today it can accompany us constantly through social media.
It's a perspective particularly suited to found footage.
The genre works when it convinces viewers that the images aren't simply "cinema," but something that could have been recorded by an ordinary person. And what format is closer to contemporary everyday life than a video shot on a smartphone?
From this perspective, The Influencer Project could represent a natural evolution of the formula tested by The Blair Witch Project. No longer "we found these videotapes," but "this material was already online in front of our eyes."
A Return to Found Footage, But Not to Blair Witch
It's important to note that The Influencer Project is not a new chapter in the Blair Witch saga. Sánchez and Hale are simultaneously working on a new film in the Lionsgate/Blumhouse franchise, where they're involved as executive producers alongside Daniel Myrick and some original cast members.
Nybroe's project is instead a standalone story.
And that's perhaps the most interesting detail. While Hollywood is bringing The Blair Witch Project – Il Mistero della Strega di Blair back to theaters with a new version scheduled for September 24, 2027, its creators are simultaneously experimenting with another story in the same cinematic language.
Almost as if Sánchez and Hale wanted to prove that found footage doesn't belong solely to nineties nostalgia.
Why The Influencer Project Could Be Different
The real question isn't whether the film will replicate the Blair Witch effect. It probably couldn't: the 1999 film arrived in an era when the internet was still new enough for its marketing campaign to deliberately blur reality and fiction. Today's audiences are far more accustomed to manipulated content, ARGs, creepypasta, and social media horror.
The challenge is different: making something we see every day genuinely unsettling again.
A stalker who knows the victim's movements through social media. A camera always recording. An audience watching without understanding what's really happening. The transformation of private life into content.
These are far less supernatural fears than Blair Witch, but precisely because of that, they're potentially more immediate.
When Will It Come Out?
According to Fangoria's latest announcement, The Influencer Project will arrive in U.S. theaters on October 2, 2026.
The project was previously associated with an American release in September, but the August 11 update now points to October 2 as the announced theatrical release date.
From the woods of Maryland to smartphone screens, the formula changes shape but keeps the same question: how terrifying can an image become when we stop being sure it's only fiction?
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