EIGHTEEN months on from Influencer, a cannily crafted mystery about a popular social media bellwether with a chilling fascination with murder and identity, the carnage ensues once more.
Influencers, an impressive sequel — a step up from the first film even — it sees director Kurtis David Harder absolutely relish the darkness let loose by his leading lady Cassandra Naud as she travels the world taking on new identities and wreaking havoc.
CW (Naud) is a blissfully unhinged young woman who lives her life as a free spirit, floating from one exotic island to the next, reinventing herself at every turn.
In the first film, she sets her focus on popular social media influencer Madison (Emily Tennant), who is having a rather lonely time of it in exotic Thailand. Of course, for her fans on Instagram it is all sunshine and lollipops.
Just as she’s had about enough of Southeast Asia and is ready to jet back home, she meets the plucky and enigmatic CW, who offers to take her to some of the most extraordinary locations — sure to give her Insta followers plenty to get excited about. Obviously the devious and deranged chaperon has ulterior motives of her own and things don’t at all bode well for Madison.
Influencers picks up where we left them at the end of the first film, but by now CW has moved on and set up a new fake life for herself in the South of France after entangling another trusting victim in her web.
The director warns us about the dangers of AI and getting lost in a pandora’s box of social media, all with a deliciously twisted sense of humour and some of the most joyous butchery I’ve seen on screen in some time.
Influencers is a much better movie than its predecessor. It owns its dark heart and then some.
(5/5)