{"id":39847,"date":"2023-05-23T20:45:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T00:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39847"},"modified":"2023-05-23T20:52:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T00:52:04","slug":"influencer-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/23\/influencer-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Influencer (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the best things about \u201cInfluencer\u201d is about how absolutely unprepared I was for it. I didn\u2019t know what was getting in to with Kurtis David Harder’s film, as I knew almost nothing going in to \u201cInfluencer\u201d and I ended up with what amounts to a pretty slick and tense crime thriller. \u201cInfluencer\u201d is a movie that is absolutely disarming and completely out of left field, as director Kurtis David Harder successfully subverts a lot of expectations with thrillers of this ilk. The movie is set in a foreign, mysterious land, centered on two gorgeous American women that are traveling abroad. From that smaller concept, Harder uses this as a launch pad to introduce us to one of the more sociopathic and cunning movie villains that I\u2019ve seen in years.<\/p>\n

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Madison is a popular social media influencer who is having a lonely and uneventful trip in Thailand despite what she tells her followers on Instagram. While reflecting on her boyfriend canceling the trip, she meets CW, a fearless and enigmatic traveler who offers to take her to some of the most Instagram-worthy locations. Together they share authentic meals and drinks with locals, discussing the differences between Madison’s online presence and CW’s lack of one. After showing Madison all of the amazing sights, things take a different turn when CW brings her to a surprise location — a deserted island that is completely off the grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfluencer\u201d is very much a thriller that implements the use of technology not only as a means of conveying how easy it is to take someone\u2019s life, but how easy it is for someone to be forgotten. I admit that I never quite knew what director Harder was up to, but I was absolutely compelled to keep watching, if only to see how he would handle his central character CW. Harder bathes her sinister activities in to a back drop of amazing landscapes and incredible sights, transforming her in to a predator that defies all tropes and clich\u00e9s. As CW, Cassandra Naud is absolutely mesmerizing presenting a multi layered depiction of a character that is charming, insanely beautiful, and alluring, but also relentless and devious as all get out.<\/p>\n

Every time we think CW can\u2019t go far enough, she always manages to go a bit further. It\u2019s never quite apparent who among the characters is the protagonist, as it\u2019s never clear whether or not Harder is siding with CW. Nearly the entire film is spent on her scheming and stalking about, and Naud really manages to rise to the occasion here. She\u2019s such an intriguing, amorphous villain that I could never quite put my finger on what her entire end goal was. That sadly works to the detriment of the entire narrative, as we\u2019re never given a definitive answer on what drives CW, and what end game is.<\/p>\n

I love healthy ambiguity, but the narrative from director Harder and Tesh Guttikonda never seems to make up its mind as to what end CW is working toward. In either case, \u201cInfluencer\u201d is just such a delightful surprise. It\u2019s a suspenseful, and absolutely stellar dark thriller that has a lot to say about influencer culture, and the frightening methods it can swallow us whole.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Streaming Exclusively on Shudder (<\/strong>US, CA, UKI, ANZ) May 26th<\/sup>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best things about \u201cInfluencer\u201d is about how absolutely unprepared I was for it. I didn\u2019t know what was getting in to with Kurtis David Harder’s film, as I knew almost nothing going in to \u201cInfluencer\u201d and I ended up with what amounts to a pretty slick and tense crime thriller. \u201cInfluencer\u201d is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[240,302,477,703,1013,1087],"class_list":["post-39847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39851,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39847\/revisions\/39851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}