Art is similar to pornography in the sense that I know it when I see it. There is a very fine line dividing art – whether that be performance art, music, poetry, or visual arts – from empty vacancy or ugly vandalism. Sometimes those lines can be blurred, much like a nipple on Instagram or the modern differentiation between television and film. This is even more apparent in avant-garde expressions of art, made to challenge traditional norms of what can and cannot be classified as art. A founding tenant of any counterculture movement is rooted in artistic pushback against tradition, and, importantly, the perspective of the artist themselves. In Ori Segev and Noah Dixon’s simmering psychosexual music-thriller Poser, the fine line between artist and con-artist melts and refracts as an obsessive podcaster infiltrates the inner sacrum or the Columbus underground music scene.

Music is unique in that the whole begging, borrowing, and stealing from one’s predecessors is a time-honored tradition. There are only so many notes in music after all. Everything is a remix of sorts. At its core, music is theft. Lennon (Sylvie Mix) takes this idea to the extreme. Poser begins with Lennon Googling how to start a podcast, her stated mission to explore and give voice to the vast network of Columbus, Ohio’s off-the-beaten-path musical scene. Dixon and Segev, working from an unsettlingly emotionless script, leave her actual motivation unclear, Lennon assembling a recorded collage of other people’s music, lyrics, and poetry that she in turns tries to pass off as her own.

As Lennon circles around Damn the Witch Siren front-woman Bobbi Kitten, an energized electronic musician who’s dubbed her style “Witch Rock”, she crosses more lines. Plagiarism turns to stalking as Lennon mimics and steals from her new muse, copycatting her mannerisms, practicing flirty smiles in the mirror. But despite her obvious Single White Female routine, Bobbi and the crew she runs with accepts Lennon whole-cloth and she becomes accepted as an artist, though it’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes their own work spilling from Lennon’s mouth.

Lennon remains unknowable throughout the film, a reflection of a reflection, an empty vessel that she fills with the burgeoning genius of others. She exists behind a facade of invention and Mix sells that emptiness well, leaning into the sponge-like, manipulative nature of this at times frighteningly vacuous character. There’s notes of both Aubrey Plaza’s stalker comedy Ingrid Goes West and the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring Nightcrawler, where ambition and psychosis collide to leave human wreckage strewn carelessly about. A club scene midway through is highly reminiscent of a similar scene from Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, another tip of the hat to the interlocking synchronicity between art and insanity. Dixon and Segev prove effective at ratcheting up a sense of dread, whether it be the will-they-won’t-they sexual tension between Bobbi and Lennon or a more sinister curiosity about how far Lennon is willing to go to preserve her status as an original artist and not some cheap poser.

Coming off the music video scene, Dixon and Segev have made a compelling debut feature film that feels grounded in a reality they know and love. The duo explores the Columbus music scene in earnest, featuring music from real-life bands like WYD, Son of Dribble, Mungbean, CAAMO, and The Cordial Sins, each appearing as themselves in yet another blurring of lines between real life and art, while introducing the multitudinous breadth of Columbus’ indie music scene.

While Lennon pilfers and plagiarizes, Poser dials up the reverb. Bobbi moves, Lennon moves in kind. Their proximity closing, Lennon’s secret seems doomed to exposure with Mix slips into the outrage and panic of an uncovered mole agent like yet another skin suit to try on for the week. Like all music, the plotting can be a bit derivative and perhaps too distant from the internal workings of its sketchy protagonist but Poser moves the dial into intriguing directions, setting its drama against a unique backdrop that gives the familiar patterns new life. Imitation is flattery after all. And flattery is all well and good, until you get flattened by it.

CONCLUSION: An envious podcaster infiltrates the Columbus underground music scene in Ori Segev and Noah Dixon’s engaging debut ‘Poser’. A stalker-thriller featuring a pair of engaging breakout performances, the beats may be familiar in places but are remixed to amplified effect.