Influencer (2022)

June 15, 2023 david.s.smith HCF Reviews 0

Influencer (2022)
Directed by: Kurtis David Harder
Written by: Kurtis David Harder, Tesh Guttikonda
Starring: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Rory J Saper

I know, I know – the name and poster make it look tedious. I thought so too. By now, we’ve had so many horrors centered around social media and influencer culture that it feels like we hit saturation years ago. As much as they have taken over our lives, they’ve taken over our genre. Yet I was pleasantly surprised by the latest flick from Kurtis David Harder, who previously gave us the underrated Spiral (not the Saw one). It isn’t among the best of the subgenre – maybe still Death of a Vlogger, Host, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, and Bodies Bodies Bodies. Though it’s certainly worth talking about in the same breath as B-grade movies such as Sissy, Unfriended, Spree, or Cam. And way better than #Horror, Shook, or Slenderman. See, I told you there’d been a lot.

Influencer takes place in the beautiful country of Thailand, where an ominous opening shot glides over a body on a beach. Cut to a flashback, and influencer Madison (Tennent) is photographing her food and posing in front of waves. She’s all smiles and empowerment on the camera, telling people why she’s happy to be there alone. Yet off camera, she’s insecure and lonely. She’s meant to be having the time of her life, but all she’s really done is sit by the pool wondering why her boyfriend Ryan (Saper) hasn’t shown up. One night she drowns her sorrows when a Brit abroad, with an awful accent, starts working his moves on her. Enter CW (Naud) to help her: more cynical and less online. Taking Madison under her wing, they see elephants, hills, and forests – The Thailand tourist board will love it! However, when they go to visit an isolated island, things take a darker turn.

I don’t want to say any more about the story. Not because it switches genres halfway through or relies on a massive twist – like they were dead all along. But because even though Influencer tells a story you’ll have seen before, probably several times, it finds a fresh angle on it. This isn’t yet another Hostel-style film about tourists going somewhere they shouldn’t (though it’ll probably please people who want to see that). Instead, it’s a more ambitious horror dark comedy that skews our relationships with technology. In short, it’s about hubris, oversharing, and how vulnerable we can be online – whether it’s stalking or fraud. But more importantly, it’s a creative, well-paced thriller that plays a lot with audience expectations and complicity. Throughout act one, I was satisfied even if I found it a little predictable – I guessed precisely where it was going, and I reckon most of you will too. But from the half-hour mark onwards, I was hooked.

A big part of that comes from the characters and performances. What’s refreshing is Infleuncer doesn’t just depict social media as something malevolent but takes time to explore why people use it so much. Tennent adds depth to Madison, finding the vulnerability in a role that could have just been played as a bratty archetype. Naud is also excellent as CW, capturing a lot of people’s exasperation with Insta culture. Then there’s Saper, who bestows Ryan with a douche/fratboy energy that’s unlikeable but also, at times, magnetic. A man who has become full of himself with constant likes and shares. It helps that none of them are depicted as good – all her selfish and self-serving in different ways. As such, when we meet our villain in the second half, it’s hard not to relate to their dislike of young, entitled brats. We don’t get much context for them, with a backing story merely implied, though there’s enough to the performance that we can create our own. As the noose tightens around them, I found whether they’d succeed or not an oddly compelling source of tension.

Overall, Influencer is a cut above the average social media horror giving us thoughtful, exciting content that balances suspense and satire expertly. For me, it’s a more satisfying whole than Spiral, which took far longer to show its uniqueness, and a good sign of things to come. Harder gets a lot of mileage out of his story, his setting and his cast, showing how he can mutually play to and subvert genre tropes in a way that can mutually appeal to fans and non-fans. There are some script problems – jarring dialogue and an ending that relies on one character making a silly decision – though these are minimal. And while some of its critiques are familiar, as are the story beats, it’s a fun way to spend 90 minutes. Depending on your point of reference, you’ll like, love, or upvote it.

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