Director – Kurtis David Hader, Screenplay – Tesh Guttikonda & Kurtis David Hader, Producers – Jack Campbell, Brandon Christensen, Tesh Guttikonda & Kurtis David Hader & Micah Henry, Photography – David Schuurman, Music – Avery Kentis, Visual Effects – Brandon Christensen, Production Design – Megan MacAulay. Production Company – Jackrabbit Media/Diamond Cutter Films/Super Chill.
Cast
Cassandra Naud (CW), Rory J. Saper (Ryan Edwards), Emily Tennant (Madison), Sara Canning (Jessica Tiegen), Paul Spurrier (Rupert), Justin Sams (Jay)
Plot
The social media influencer Madison is in Thailand on a vacation. She is upset that her boyfriend Ryan cancelled on coming with her and makes the decision to break up with him. At the same time, she meets CW, a fellow tourist who has a prominent facial birthmark. Madison’s hotel room is then broken into and her passport stolen. While Madison waits for a replacement to be sent from the consulate, CW takes her away to a private island – only to abandon Madison there where the lack of supplies will mean that she will die in a matter of days. Returning to the mainland, CW then impersonates Madison on social media, using Deep Fake technology to impose Madison’s face on her own. She then sets her targets on befriending another social media influencer Jessica Tiegen. Her plans are thrown awry as Ryan arrives in the country to reconcile with Madison.
Influencer was the fourth film from Canadian director Kurtis David Hader who had previously made the non-genre Cody Fitz (2011), the SF film Incontrol (2017) and the horror film Spiral (2019). Hader has also produced a number of other genre works including Fake Blood (2017), Still/Born (2017), Knuckleball (2018), What Keeps You Alive (2018), Harpoon (2019), Z (2019), Superhost (2021) and V/H/S/94 (2021).
There have not been that many horror films about tourists before. You could name Hostel (2005) and perhaps more so a copy of Hostel like Turistas (2006). There is the odd other film like The Comfort of Strangers (1990) and A Perfect Getaway (2009), and at a stretch yachtboard thrillers like Dead Calm (1989) and Voyage (1993). Too much more beyond that one is straining to think of any examples. If anything, Influencer reminds of a social media era version of the central character of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley books about a superficially charming psychopath who steals the identity of others.
Influencer gets points taken off it right out of the starting gate for being set around the utterly vapid profession of the ‘social media influencer’. And as the film opens on Emily Tennant’s airhead voiceover, you begin to dig your mental talons into wanting to hate the film. In a considerable surprise, Influencer then proceeds to defy all of these expectations.
(l to r front) social media influencer Emily Tennant and psychopathic imposter Cassandra Naud
After taking us through Emily Tennant’s story, her breakup with her boyfriend, the theft of her passport and befriending Cassandra Naud, the film abruptly turns everything on its head. There is the sudden chilling point when Emily Tennant and Cassandra Naud are relaxing on the beach on the island and Naud turns on Emily and calmly states “No, I am not going to kill you. But I am going to leave you here.” At first this seems like a joke but Naud digs a knife in “You sell products to little girls. Do you really think they’d come looking for you? I bet if I took over your [social media] account, no one would notice.” and then begins to slam it home “You feel entitled to thinking that people should follow you, which makes you believe that you’re the centre of the universe.” Emily takes this as a joke, but we know it isn’t, before in the morning Emily wakes up as Cassandra Naud proceeds to do exactly as she stated. Indeed, the main credits of the film do not even play until this storyline ends and the new story tangent following Naud’s theft of Emily’s identity begins 26 minutes into the film.
After this point, Influencer becomes a film propelled by its sharp and unexpected whiplash turns – as we watch Cassandra Naud stalking Sara Canning, before further twists with Ryan (Rory J. Saper)’s unexpected arrival at the villa, or where Cassandra is perpetually on the verge of having her identity masquerade exposed by either Rory Saper and Sara Canning or being discovered during her attempts to dispose of either of them. The script adeptly snakes back and forward in time to approach events from different points-of-view. Indeed, it is one script that one can say they pleasingly had no idea where it was going to go at any point in time, which is surely one of the greatest plaudits that one can pay to a thriller. It is a slickly produced film. Everything takes place in luxurious surroundings and expensive villas that are all beautifully photographed.
It is also a film that very much exploits current fears and anxieties about social media. The very title Influencer plants its feet right in the social media generation, although the film only makes a cautious dig into its ribs of how awful most influencers are. The rest of the film though is rooted in anxieties about identity theft, Deep Fake technologies, Photoshopping and the use of A.I. Cassandra Naud even employs an (existing?) technology that allows her to type text into a laptop that comes out as the voice of Emily Tennant as Rory J. Saper believes he is holding a real-time phone conversation with her on the other side of the room.
