Three years after Madison and CW faced off on an island, the pair go head-to-head again at a fancy resort in Kurtis David Harder’s Influencers, premiering on Shudder December 12th.
This review contains spoilers for Influencer (the original, to be clear).
In 2022, Influencer, written by Tesh Guttikonda & Kurtis David Harder, and directed by Kurtis David Harder, was a surprise smash for Shudder. A sharp cat & mouse discussion thriller of warring personalities and situations, and plenty of subterfuge and bloodletting, introducing a new great horror villain in CW. Three years later, Influencers returns with the same team, minus co-writer Guttikonda, to continue the themes, ideas, the back and forth of the original but in new ways. It’s nearly as strong, if not with some hangups.
It’s been some time since Madison, a returning Emily Tennant, left CW, a still fantastic and iconic Cassandra Naud, on a deserted island. We find CW, now off the island (if this is explained, I didn’t catch how; but it would be a diversion from the already slightly too-long 1h50m run time, and I like the mystery), back to her old tricks. Checking into a beautiful French castle for the one-year anniversary with her girlfriend and settling into a “not killing annoying people life,”; she finds they’ve been pushed from their room by an influencer, Charlotte, Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell. Uh oh for Charlotte. Well, things happen, and she ends up back to her old tricks and hitting up an influencer-infested resort in Southeast Asia, ready to slay her way through the pushy, rich, and vapid.
Tracking her is Madison. Showing up on shore in Thailand with a boat containing two bodies, she ended up in hot water since, whelp, CW was no longer on the island once they believed her enough. I like this touch, so often I feel the Final Girl will be arrested after the credits roll. It’s nice to see the follow-up. In a great exploration, she’s exonerated with suspicion, she’s under fire and harassment of the continually online, as CW doesn’t seem to exist legally anywhere. The negatives of social media, of the internet sleuth blame game, the “make this person’s life hell” is a terrifying groove to slide into. Since no one can seem to find CW, which I do find weird, as she’s continuously in public with very front-facing people, and the giant birthmark on her face is hard to miss, the internet consensus is that Madison’s a murderer, and the internet will not let her go. Especially dude bros.
Like the one that gets caught in the middle of the women. Jacob, Jonathan Whitesell runs an Andrew Tate sort of a masculinity bro type thing. I’m glad to get into this sort of influencer. Brain-dead travel blogs, sure; annoying and searching for clout. Dumb, but harmless (ish, but that’s a bigger discussion). But man-o-sphere forced false masculinity pressing on impressionable boys to be terrible people, that’s a whole other thing. Especially when guys like our Jacob don’t actually live or believe it, but use it for their ends. His best friend, played by Dylan Playfair of Lettykenny in a vile version of the airhead hockey player, lives the life. I’m not sure what’s worse – pushing on them knowing it’s full of hot air, or actually believing it? Eh, either way, it’s awful.
Thus, Influencers becomes a cat-and-mouse game of Madison (tracking CW to the resort) and CW, with this guy between them. Harder keeps the back and forth of CW and Madison delicious in his direction. On the script level, Influencers often has the same driving, knowing, smirking energy of hte the surprisingly very damned good original. Following both stories gives a narrative drive and a fun turn of who exactly to root for. We know CW is the villain, but she’s charming, and she really hates the fake people she targets; people easy for the audience to hate. The comfortably rich, impossibly beautiful jetseters in their 20s, lounging easily in their resorts, when not being terrors to everyone they see beneath them. What does CW think of the desperate hangers-on, as Joe Kerry’s wanna be in the fiercely tense Spree? There is a slight disconnect for me in that whole world being so far away from the regular viewer; it muddies the intentions. But that might be the point. Heck, CW is clearly part of the society she hates. She lives the life, even in ending others.
Influencers does lose some steam most of the way, though, when it boils down to a she-said/she-said without much to say; a shallow cut after a great start. Feels like it would be stronger to follow Madison more; really keep to a dual storytelling as the two ends start to close. The back-and-forth cuts to Madison for shorter lengths feel like distractions; forced bits to see the pieces move from a different angle. An AI addition is also slightly odd, in a “ooh, we should touch on this, but not sure how” angle.
However, for whatever missteps, Influencers roars back with a fantastic extended climax filled with great moments, back and forth, and more than enough bloodletting (the button in the whole is highly satisfying)
Influencers is a solid follow-up to a very well-done original. Kurtis David Harder builds on the themes and ideas of the first, extending to further awfulness in social media in Madison’s harassment and Jason’s Tate-like behaviors, but without becoming too on the nose or pushy. As a horror-thriller, tensions are built beautifully as Madison and CW circle one another, playing to their strengths as characters, all leading to a fantastic conclusion. If you dug the first Influencer, Influencers will earn your like-comment-subscribe after its release on Shudder on December 12th.