In late 2023, I noticed a new subgenre on the horizon, emerging from the intersection of celebrity culture and horror. I call it “Stage Fright”—save the groans, it’s a working title. With the release of Trap, Smile 2, and MaXXXine, this new wave reflects a zeitgeist increasingly disillusioned with the glittering facades of billionaires and icons, and eagerly tuning in when these stars find themselves ensnared in tragic circumstances.

In Smile 2, international pop star Skye Riley (played with twitchy dread by Naomi Scott) is haunted by a demon that drives her insane as she starts rehearsals for her big comeback tour one year after a terrible accident. Skye Riley is . . . not a great person. She’s self-centered and at every turn refuses to admit wrongdoing. Despite these flaws, I found myself deeply invested in her survival. It’s tempting to blame this on the classic “she’s the protagonist, of course you care” argument, but her addictions and struggles humanized her. There’s a sequence where she blows up at her background dancers before blaming a trashed dressing room on her hyper-needy assistant, and I felt sorry for her. By the time the credits rolled on Skye Riley’s story, I was a nervous wreck. It all felt so unfair, and oddly close to home. I’ve never been hunted by a demon or felt the immense pressure of launching a stadium tour, but I’ve lashed out at people. I’ve fought tooth and nail for control in unpredictable times. I’ve felt like an imposter observing my own life. And I’m not the only one. I had long conversations with other casual viewers who felt the same kinship with Scott’s character.

Now, contrast this response with the real-life rebuking pop star Chappell Roan experienced when she spoke out earlier this year to say she doesn’t want to be approached by fans when she’s not embodying her onstage persona. The comments I saw were largely critical, calling her ungrateful and arrogant. Even after she explained that she’d experienced stalking, assault, and harassment offstage by so-called fans, the response was still unpitying. The message from the public was clear: She can’t say no, we made her.

The question then becomes: When we can’t bring ourselves to sympathize with the rich and famous in real life, even as they endure trauma due to their celebrity status, why do we miraculously find empathy for the fictional bourgeoisie?

Is it because we’re all too aware that the glimpses we get of these celebrities, even the seemingly genuine ones, are a curation? Tina Fey put it best earlier this year when she chastised Bowen Yang on his podcast Las Culturistas: “Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” Why would anyone choose to be real when their livelihoods are dependent upon being liked? In a world where a public figure sharing an honest opinion can lead to their ostracization, remaining neutral about everything is the key to a sustainable career and a peaceful life. And therein lies the issue.

I can’t relate to someone who keeps the whole world at a football field’s length, even as I logically know it’s an act of self-preservation. I believe this is why people don’t like celebrities asking for space, and why comebacks are highly anticipated. We saw them fall, and now we get to see them scramble back to their feet as they overshare in a desperate bid to win our favor. It simultaneously triggers a protective instinct and a Simon Cowell-esque drive to judge them. We want them to succeed, but we don’t mind if they fail. We’re entertained either way.

It seems the only acceptable outcomes to public suffering are self-flagellation and/or fading into obscurity. That is, until their tragedy is profitable. Then we’ll see a dozen podcasts pop up with titles like, “Cinema’s Icarus: The Untold Story of Famous Idolson” and “Starlet McMoviestar: Unleashed and Unafraid.” And then it’s time for them to paste a smile on and pretend they love the unwavering gaze of the entire world watching them.

Trap felt like a prequel to this very phenomenon, as we watched Saleka Night’s Lady Raven outsmart Josh Hartnett’s Cooper (the most charismatic serial killer since Joe Goldberg) about eighteen times in the third act. In one scene, Lady Raven utilizes Instagram Live to save another captive character’s life by describing Cooper’s neighborhood while hiding in a locked room. Of course, as an audience, we’re primed and ready for the concerned comments from fans, the ones asking if she’s okay and helping her find this abducted man. I wasn’t prepared for the comments continuing to ask her when she’d be touring again or telling her she looks pretty . . . even after she breathlessly explains that this is an emergency and she’s in danger. The theater I was in laughed uproariously at her audience’s inability to read the room, but I felt it was more accurate and horrifying than anything we’d seen thus far in the film.

I can only imagine the media frenzy following Lady Raven after she escaped Cooper’s clutches. Maybe she took a step back, regrouped, and released a masterpiece album about the whole experience. The world would have been enthralled, given her a dozen Grammys, and then demanded an even more personal but somehow completely different project. Then she would have retreated once more and returned with a disappointing followup trying to replicate that post-traumatic magic. There’s only so many times one popstar can be kidnapped before the public calls them a one-trick-pony, after all.

Fans are fickle, oftentimes only rooting for their favorite starlet when the weather is fair and their art is palatable. “Stans,” however, are a whole other story. Fandom culture classifies “Stans” as fans who are so devoted to their chosen public figure, they are willing to overlook any wrongdoing or injustice their celebrity has committed, and will do everything in their power to support and defend their celebrity. The use of the word “their” is purposeful. Stans take a sort of ownership of these people. They claim them. And when these public figures inevitably fumble, their Stans will defend them.

This is demonstrated beautifully in Perfect Blue, an animated horror film about a celebrity named Mima Kirigoe surviving a sadistic stalker while the lines between reality and fiction blur. About halfway in, Mima acts in a graphic rape scene in a bid to outgrow her cutesy popstar image—a situation that many former child stars know very well.

Publicly, Mima’s fans defend her as being an adult who can make her own decisions. Privately, they scold her for embarrassing them and call her a slut. Sure, Perfect Blue came out in 1997, but even at the time, it held that chastening mirror up to its audiences and asked them what they saw. The answer? Freaks. Predators. Not reasonable people like us.

We couldn’t have known how the twenty-four-hour news cycle would change everything, or how emotionally brutalizing the rich and beautiful would become a sport, but we’ve all willfully participated. With the advent of social media, we’ve only grown closer to the celebrities we used to know very little about, and the perpetually online have only become more obsessive.

Stage Fright is about the horror of people believing they know a celebrity based on refractions of the truth—articles about them, posts on social media, out-of-context soundbites from interviews . . . but it’s also about the horror of realizing that we know nothing at all about the people we follow. And maybe, while we were speculating whether so-and-so is pregnant again or if such-and-such is heading back to rehab, we became the real monsters.