Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Kurtis David Harder
Starring: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Georgina Campbell, Lisa Delamar, Jonathan Whitesell, Veronica Long, Dylan Playfair
With Aliens, his sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien, James Cameron decided to up the ante by pluralising the titular monsters. With Influencers, writer/director Kurtis David Harder's welcome sequel to his entertaining 2022 thriller Influencer, it's the victims rather than the villain who have been multiplied. When you have a villain as fiendish as the murderous identity thief CW (Cassandra Naud), one is all you need.
The first movie saw CW run riot in Thailand, conning social media influencers into accompanying her to a remote island where she would leave them for dead before stealing both their online and real life identities. That movie ended with one of CW's targets, Madison (Emily Tennant), turning the tables and leaving CW stranded on the same island. How CW made it off the island is a question this sequel knows the audience will be asking. Rather than providing a hokey explanation, Harder has some meta fun by having various characters ask the same question throughout his movie without ever receiving an answer. Sequels often run into the issue of having to explain how the villain was able to make an improbable return, but Harder is essentially saying that it doesn't matter; just go with it. Refusing to provide an answer also greatly adds to the mystique of CW and the sense that she's a mad genius working on a level of deviousness we can't even fathom.
Influencer owed much to Psycho in its plot structure, and Influencers nods to that classic's under-appreciated 1983 sequel in initially asking us to sympathise with the first movie's villain, who is now attempting to lead a normal life. CW is now living in the south of France with her new French girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar), and she appears to have given up her wicked ways. But just as the reformed Norman Bates inevitably found himself staring at his kitchen cutlery, CW can only go so long without leading an annoying influencer to their death. Such an opportunity presents itself in the form of vacuous British social media icon Charlotte (current genre queen Georgina Campbell), who annoys CW by getting friendly with Diane.
Meanwhile Madison has become an Amanda Knox figure back in the US. Though cleared of the murders of CW's victims in Thailand, she's considered a killer by much of the American public. Deciding that the only way to truly clear her name lies in finding CW, Madison sets about following leads, which bring her to Bali where CW is lining up her latest batch of victims.
A cat and mouse game ensues between Madison and CW, but the tables have now turned and CW is the mouse. Despite her being, you know, a mass murderer, our sympathies lie somewhat with CW. She's just so bloody cool (and let's be honest, ridiculously sexy), and there's an aspirational quality to how she manages to live a globetrotting life, travelling to gorgeous locales and butchering some of the most annoying people to ever wield a selfie stick. She's the James Bond of homicidal identity thieves, and with its globe-spanning plotlines, Harder's series is becoming the Mission: Impossible of lesbian slasher thrillers.
The potential victims lined up for CW this time are a particularly loathsome lot, chiefly Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), a misogynistic dweeb who fancies himself the next Andrew Tate. As soon as he appears we begin relishing the thought of whatever gruesome denouement CW might have planned for the twerp.
In the first movie, CW seemed to pick influencers as her victims because they just happened to be in the right place at the right time, but here it's suggested that she really can't stand these people. But as with the first movie, Harder doesn't simply portray his film's influencers as one-note assholes. It's quickly revealed that Jacob's online persona is a front, and he's actually riddled with self-conscious doubt when he's not on camera. It's his Candace Owens-esque girlfriend Ariana (Veronica Long) who is shaping his image in Lady Macbeth fashion behind the scenes.
That said, we still find ourselves cheering when CW begins her violent rampage. Harder dials it to 11 in this regard, with CW dispatching anyone who gets in her way like Jason Vorhees in a string bikini. Late on we get a riotously fun sequence that is essentially the girlfight equivalent of the kitchen fight from The Raid 2.
Fully aware of how much fans of Influencer loved, or loved to hate CW, Harder has elevated her to almost mythic status here. This means it's now a little hard to swallow how she continues to get away with all this, especially when the combination of her beauty and distinctive birthmark gives her a face nobody is likely to forget. The addition of AI to CW's arsenal also feels like a bit of a cheat, boosting her superpowers in ways that weren't really required. There is something intensely creepy in how CW gives her chatbot the voice of one of her victims though. But fear not, Harder doesn't simply plonk his villainess down in front of a laptop, she's still putting in the hard yards on her quest to off every social media star she encounters. Good for her.
Influencers is on Shudder from December 12th.
