Influencer (II) (2022) User Reviews

Enjoyable Thriller Set in Thailand

[zack_gideon · 6/10 · 26 May 2023]

Quite enjoyable shudder original. Haven't seen many yet so this one is a rare gem. It's not a horror at all, it's a nice little thriller set in Thailand. Cassandra Naud leads, and is quite talented, using some charm and other more nefarious acting talents.

What I thought made this movie above average was the pacing, the plot itself which is pretty unique and well thought out, adding a social media element but not making it the entire story.

Some of the cinematography is pretty breath taking, on the water, etc and the settings are diverse so you don't get stuck in a location.

Overall it's a quite, tight, well acted thriller although a tad predictable at least for me. I'll give that a pass though, I watch too many movies. 6.5/10. We'll done!

A surprisingly entertaining thriller

[johannes2000-1 · 7/10 · 27 November 2023]

I liked it. It's advertised as horror, but I would prefer to call it a thriller, and in view of the probably modest budget, they did an admirable job. There's an interesting and original story, with several shifts in the plot, and there's a fascinating female villain, who is extremely charming but at the same time radiates an intangible but menacing malice. Cassandra Naud plays her totally convincing, and since her victims are these dumb and self-absorbed influencers, you almost root for her instead of them. It's a pity that the story ends in such an unrealistic and thus unsatisfying way, it certainly had earned a better written conclusion. The settings in Thailand are beautiful, and the villa where part of the action takes place is absolutely awesome. It was a bit strange however that in all these touristic places, even in the hotels, there were hardly any other tourists in sight, it was as if the main cast wandered around totally alone. Did they maybe shoot the picture during Covid restrictions? But for the rest: a fine and very entertaining thriller.

Influencers, the jokers of modern society.

[deloudelouvain · 7/10 · 9 March 2024]

Influencer, the title alone made me already having very low expectations. Needless to say I don't have a high opinion of influencers, the wannabe starlets, even lesser for their mindless followers, brainwashed puppets. But since it was a horror movie I watched it in the hope the influencer would get her comeuppance. Emily Tennant played the wannabe diva and she did a good job. But the main star of the movie was Cassandra Naud who was most convincing in her performance. Overall not a bad movie at all. It could all happen in real life, where too much people trust everything and everybody on social media. A modern horror/thriller that I enjoyed watching.

Don't believe the bad reviews

[honeybloggs-69648 · 7/10 · 30 May 2023]

It was entertaining and good fun to watch. The Cinematography was brilliant . It captured the beautiful side of Thailand . We are normally shown the dirty , seedy side of Thailand in films . All the directors ever show us are young backpackers from the UK Europe and Australia because according to the directors no-one with money visits or exists in Thailand ! Lol! So it was refreshing to see the real Thailand which has beautiful hotels , apartments and houses!

The film was well acted . The lead female 'baddie' was excellent . The plot was good too! It showed how fake influencers are and a lot of money can be made by inventing an online character . The ending was great too ( Even though most of us would have guessed the ending , it was still fun ! . This movie is worth a watch! .

Quite enjoyable thriller...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 28 May 2023]

Well, I have to admit that with a title such as "Influencer", then I wasn't really harboring much of any hopes or expectations to director Kurtis David Harder's 2022 movie. Why? Well, simply because I find the whole term 'influencer' laughable and utter ridiculous. Yet, with it being a horror movie that I hadn't seen, of course I opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt.

And while the movie is carrying a laughable title, then I will say that writers Tesh Guttikonda and Kurtis David Harder actually put together an entertaining script and storyline for the movie. Thankfully there isn't much focus on the ridiculous social media aspect of the influencer career and the hunt for likes from random strangers, and that definitely worked in favor of the movie that it wasn't a focal point. Instead, "Influencer" felt like a good old fashioned stalker thriller.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. And while the movie has a very small cast ensemble, it should be noted that they were nicely cast for their individual roles, and they all performed quite well and brought their characters and the story to life on the screen in a good way. Especially Cassandra Naud (playing CW) carried the movie quite well with her performance.

"Influencer" is definitely worth taking 92 minutes to sit down and watch. I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the movie. And if you enjoy thrillers, then give it a chance. "Influencer" is listed also as a horror movie, but don't get your hopes up on that account.

Well, the 87 minutes of the movie was great, while the ending and the last 5 minutes were so predictable that even a blind person would go 'you got to be kiddng me'. It was a very, very generic ending to the movie.

My rating of "Influencer" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Pretty decent for a low budget...

[pedrock-44102 · 7/10 · 30 July 2023]

I'm about to hop in...

Pros:

-Great story

-Great development

-OK, but not great acting

-Found it fascinating that there was a 30 min preface to the film.

-Great length, not over the top short or long, it's perfect.

Cons (or my thought process didn't fit in)

-Being marked a "Horror" is simply not it. There are no repulsiveness components to it nor even close. This is a decent spine chiller that you've most certainly seen from different titles, harking back to the 80 and 90s.

-Fairly unsurprising, albeit, the promotion and climate of the film were finished.

• It's a low financial plan. Presently there is nothing amiss with it. It might have had a superior possibility of being a hit in the cinema world in the event that there were Elite actors playing this.

-The completion was simply somewhat lost and disregarded. Might have finished way more astute than it really did.

Outline: It's agreeable, it's tempting, it keeps you honest till the end and you will love watching it.

Pretty good until the ending

[OakieRF · 6/10 · 9 June 2023]

Liked the movie overall. It's not a horror, really, more of a thriller. Lead actress played her role very well. Some things were questionable here and there, like at the start somehow a big very fancy hotel in Thailand is totally deserted except for the blonde influencer and eventually one old British guy lol. Letting some of that go, the plot was interesting with the lead finding and stealing influencers belongings and money to finance her life. Feel let down a bit on the ending, though. It was like the movie needed another five minutes and small tweak or two at the end for a strong finish. CW goes back to the island to dump the boyfriends body, finds her last victim (the blonde influencer) not dead like others before. Ok, we've all seen enough movies to know she wasn't going to be dead, right? Still, why would CW trudge across the relatively small island (she managed to walk from one end to the other pretty fast) to look for her victim? All I kept thinking was the second you're away from the boat, she's going to take it and leave you there. Why would CW mark the graves of the others she's buried out there? It's a deserted island and you still buried people just in case they ever were discovered right? So, if anyone did happen to ever come across the island, the crosses were a big flag to dig here and find bodies. It invalidates her bothering to bury them in the first place. If no one seems to ever come to this island, they wouldn't even have needed burying and she should have just dumped the boyfriend's body in the brush just off the beach, hopped back into her boat, and left. So, the blonde knocks out CW during her search of the island and yup, leaves on the boat and leaves CW behind. First though she lifts the tarp on the boat to see her boyfriend there dead and her expression stays the same. No emotion change at all. ??? We can't even tell if the body is still on the boat when she leaves the beach on it because of the angle of the camera shot and then, the movie just ends with CW on the beach laughing like 'oh, you got me the same way I got you' and the blonde boating back to mainland. That's it? Why not tie up CW after knocking her out to ask WHY she did all this to her? How her boyfriend ended up there dead too? Why not show us a bit about how the blonde survived on this tiny island for a month when no one else did before her? Doesn't seem there are any animals on the island, no fresh water source, so how? Ending would have been stronger if she confronted CW, maybe hid / covered up anything that gave clues as to how she survived there that long so CW couldn't do the same, and then left with CW screaming at her from the beach as the blonde pulled away on the boat. That would have been a stronger ending.

Forgettable

[danielcereto · 5/10 · 11 June 2023]

The movie itself it's quite interesting till the last 10 minutes that ruined everything. Are you serious?

I don't understand why Independent cinema can't be more original or risky.

First, the movie starts strong with a non original story but acting is decent and the landscapes are beautiful. So, overall good setting to start.

Second, the script is acceptable and credible most of the parts, but the last 10 minutes ruined everything including credibility, originality or any possible great score here. Honestly, I drastically changed my mind after watching how this movie ends.

So, overall the movie is watchable and forgettable as an Instagram post from any fake influencer. A wasted opportunity. It could have been far better with a real and authentic conclusion.

Scary and totally unpredictable!

[Guanche48 · 7/10 · 15 November 2023]

What a positive surprise, I must say that I decided to watch it because of the high rating, for a horror movie. Although I doubted it a lot due to the title and because I can't stand A social media. By the way I was born in the 70's.

The title of the movie alone made me shake with negativity but it's not a movie just for millennials, that's what I thought at first, give it a chance, it's exciting and terrifying with a good story, something different.

And let's not forget the music, I loved it, good job!

The photography in Thailand is fantastic and I liked the two lead actresses, Madison and CW in the movie. Although I would have chosen a darker-skinned actress for the role of Madison, she is very pale for a girl from California, she looks English. But the acting is great.

The story scared me because it is terrifying, especially the scene on the desert island at night and with the bonfire, something totally unexpected begins to happen, from there the story becomes very exciting and psychotic until the end. I also liked the ending, totally unpredictable, although I would have liked to see scenes of Madison alone on the island.

As for social media, I must say that I like the topic, because it is treated in a negative way and that left me satisfied.

Mobile phones have destroyed part of our lives, they only distract and that is what they are made for. Yes, I am talking about those people who carry them attached to their forehead, as I usually say. There is less and less communication, and it was already little. Don't forget that toys are there to play with but it is not mandatory to use them all. Nobody cares about your life, what you do or don't do or what time you get up and where you go on vacation, they only care about criticizing you, humiliating you and harming you.

Do you want to enjoy a scary, psychopathic and psychological movie, exciting and with a good dose of vacation vibe, don't miss it!

Looking for a predictable film full of unlikeable unhappy narcissists? Look no further.

[MG_84 · 4/10 · 23 June 2023]

As the unimaginative title suggests, this is the latest foray into the influencer "horror/thriller" film genre that seems to be "trending" right now, and much like the others this could easily be mistaken for a Lifetime movie. The plot and acting are straight out of the Lifetime playbook, it's laughably ridiculous at times and ironically, like the thousands of influencers out there, seems to think it's better than its peers. It's not.

Madison is an influencer who travels the world promoting products and places for money and freebies. Unsurprisingly she's unhappy and unfulfilled with her hollow and materialistic life. After a "chance" meeting with the seemingly friendly fellow solo-traveller CW they begin to explore Thailand together. However, it's not long before CW shows her true motives for befriending Madison.

When Madison's obnoxious unlikeable boyfriend turns up out of the blue to surprise her and make up for an argument they had, CW's plans start to unravel, putting in motion a series of increasingly ridiculous escalations as CW desperately tries to hide the things she's done.

The finale was so predictable that I already knew 25 minutes into the film how it was going to play out. Don't expect any surprises, you're likely to know what's going to happen minutes before it does.

It's all rather dull and formulaic with an extremely basic plot. It feels like it was made for daytime tv, but I've also seen worse in the Gen-Z horror field.

If you can get past the ridiculousness of it all, the sub-par acting, the fact that none of the characters are likeable enough to care about, and you can sit through an entire Lifetime film without cringing, then this may be for you; otherwise you might be better off saving 92 minutes of your life.

As others have said the audio mixing is also terrible. I watched this on Shudder, which I'm not sure makes the best use of audio mixing as I've noticed similar issues with other Shudder films, so it could be the film's audio team, or Shudder, but vocals are often drowned out by the overly-loud musical score and there are often extremely loud short pieces of music that I assume were supposed to build tension, but just seem out of place.

A very pleasant and dark surprise

[jtindahouse · 8/10 · 8 June 2023]

I haven't had a great run with Shudder films recently. I haven't enjoyed one in a while and so seeing that brand attached to a film was starting to become a disappointing warning sign. I am happy to say that 'Influencer' has gone a little way towards redeeming the brand. This was a fun ride.

I was a little bit worried early on during the set up when we were meeting an "influencer" and seeing all the pretentious and fake photo-shoots and blog posts. I was worried that was going to be a hard protagonist to root for. Then the film became something else entirely and it went down a very enjoyable and dark route.

I love it when a film feels like it has any ending on the cards. It doesn't matter whether it ends up being the darkest of dark endings or a happy ending or something in between. All that matters is that it feels like the film is capable of delivering the full spectrum and 'Influencer' had that feel about it.

I love it when you go into a film without overly high expectations and it then proceeds to prove you wrong at every turn. 'Influencer' was exactly that and I would highly recommend it. 8/10.

The ending makes perfect sense.

[geraldscali · 7/10 · 15 August 2023]

I have never written a review before but feel compelled to do so due to many of the reviewers' misunderstanding, or better yet their dislike for the "so-called" perceived incredulous ending.

CW went back to the island to ditch another body. She noticed excessive notch marks in the wood denoting Madison was possibly still alive. People question how Madison could still be alive. Well, the Englishman at the bar told her boyfriend the picture he showed him was in the wrong time frame because it was the rainy season thus giving Madison the drinking water she needed to survive. People can survive with just water and no food for up to 4 to 5 weeks.

Very good and plausible ending.

How did the other review give this 7?!!

[Pantera-996-832071 · 1/10 · 26 May 2023]

Awful.

For starters the sound mix with any music was so bad it made what any of them were saying unintelligible. Which was most of the time.

I don't think this movie is a commentary on how easy it is to steal someone's identity. I think it's a commentary on how dumb, vacuous and self absorbed gen z are. Absolutely no sympathy for any of the characters whatsoever. It's the first thing you need to earn when making a horror movie. Which leads me to my next point...

It's not even a horror movie - so why is it on shudder? It's more like a gen z scooby doo version of murder she wrote played out on instagram.

The acting was woeful especially the boyfriend casting.

Anyway, cheap budget tv movie looking film.

Shallower Than It Thinks it Is

[alisonkatebr · 7/10 · 10 March 2024]

The film is generally competent and well-made and the acting holds up. The landscapes of Thailand are beautiful and what works very well is the loneliness and clinical cool of the sort of high end luxury resorts the influencers of the title stay in. There are notes of a film like Lost in Translation in that sense of dislocation of clueless foreign visitors in very lonely jobs, which the film uses to advance in creating the suspense and horror that drives it forward.

Unfortunately, the basic premise seems to me to be that a less conventionally attractive girl (who is in fact actually very, very beautiful) wants to take revenge on privileged blonde all-American girls and exploit them just as they exploit her country. The film can't decide if she is the villain or hero. It doesn't seem to have the strength of its convictions (if it even has any) to put together a proper argument about influencer culture. And her motivations are not explained well. So I was left thinking that it was almost something, but not quite. I still enjoyed it and I don't exactly not recommend it. I just don't believe it comes together into anything much.

Surprisingly Decent Watch

[dknb_29 · 7/10 · 11 June 2023]

Wow. I was kind of underestimate this movie. I thought it would be a B-graded movie standard, but it is not. At first the story seem to be a little lose. It has giant plot holes and looks unrealistic.

I'm pretty sure that 5 stars resort wouldn't have a random break-in. And the girl who has a birthmark on her face, what's her job anyways? That she can afford that kind of life style. I thought it was a dump plot movie. It's not!

The movie is well-thought-out and I got all these answers to those questions later on. This movie impressed me with the twist and turn. The acting is quite good actually, better than some mainstream movies. I must say. The product is also decent. Overall, a surprisingly decent watch!

I I follow ... I follow you

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 14 February 2024]

No pun intended and I reckon it is not so much about the song (if you even know it that is of course). This is about someone feeling they are worth way more than people who actually have "power" over their followers. I reckon many would love to have a certain lifestyle ... those who were lucky enough to make their money and life out of posting stuff ... sometimes benign stuff too ... well try not to overthink it.

The story is quite straight forward - it still feels quite insane. Even when you realize what the main character is doing ... you feel like you cannot escape the morality of the movie. Of course you are the one who has to judge the movie and its ending ... does it satisfy your compass? This was way better than I thought it would be ...

Movie OK, marketing needs work...

[A_Different_Drummer · 6/10 · 26 May 2023]

The marketing package for INFLUENCER 2023 hints that the film is both a thriller; and also a deep dive into the psychological perils of both Social Media and the people who use it. Problem is , the film is neither. It is however a fairly gentle and soft-spoken reprise of the "stolen identity" books and films that were a big hit in the 1950s and 1960s. As the saying goes, everything old is new again. The production values are sharp; and although it is a low-budget indie, it does not present as such. Which is really the nicest thing you can ever say about a low-budget indie. Writing, acting, direction ... all competent. Whether or not the story maintains interest is, however, an open question. If you never really became invested in the main character -- and many viewers won't -- the rest of the story may not strike your fancy. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

Slow plot, lack of any likable characters

[redban02 · 3/10 · 28 May 2023]

I think the lead actress, the girl with the birthmark on her face, is sexy. But the plot moves slowly, and the audience doesn't have a character to get behind.

The movie does begin to show a little potential nearer the end, when Madison's boyfriend plays detective (I don't want to give spoilers and say anything more). But this plot ends in a way that isn't satisfying. I also feel that the boyfriend's acting skills were weak, his personality was unlikable, and his appearance was too Kevin Federline-ish. Instead of Madison's boyfriend, maybe the second half of the movie should've been a straight mystery film, focused on a heroic police detective protagonist trying to find out what happened to Madison?

There were also some unanswered questions: why did CW (the girl with the birthmark) turn out this way? How many other influencers did she harm? How did she get away with it?

Not a fan of influencers, but the movie was pretty good!

[jnxwsdyk · 7/10 · 2 February 2024]

I usually don't like influencers and think the world has gone crazy with these people, but I found myself rooting for the influencers. I thought the movie was really good, from start to finish. The acting was good, the storyline was good, the scenery was beautiful, and the characters were interesting enough.

I wish we would have known more about the villain's background, but we can't have everything, I suppose.

I was over all pretty pleased with this movie and hesitant to watch it because of the title, but I'm certainly glad I did.

Do yourself a favor and give this a watch. I don't think it will disappoint.

That's IT???

[Foutainoflife · 4/10 · 1 June 2023]

Influencer is a slow burn that doesn't deliver.

Madison is an influencer rooted in the travel genre. She makes a solo trip to Thailand when her boyfriend flakes. While there, she sees amazing sites, relaxes in the comfort of her accommodations, posts videos and pushes products against the beautiful settings and feels totally alone until she meets a young woman who has sinister intentions.

I'm not sure if the plot was supposed to be about identity theft, the need to feel powerful, haters, jealousy or something else. It never really gave a motivation. I thought it was good great until we got to the the end. The ending was lackluster and uninspired. It could've been so much better.

Weirdly underrated, great use of sound, music, setting

[krupocin-1 · 8/10 · 28 May 2023]

I rounded up from a 7.5/10 but I think this is closer to an 8 than a 7 if I had to pick. I watch A LOT of movies and TV, I travel for work and also bring my iPad every time I hit the treadmill etc, if you look my background I'm def not a shill and I'm not someone who goes around giving out high ratings to everything (nothing annoys me on IMDb more than the overuse of 1s & 10s lately). I feel the need to say all of this because despite being critically acclaimed the IMDb score on this movie now sits at a 6.0/10 which is just absurd to me!

Sure this wasn't a perfect movie, but for someone who knew absolutely nothing about it going into it, I was pleasantly surprised in a way I hadn't been in a really long time. Part of that is probably bc 90%+ of the time I know what to expect, so there aren't a lot of opportunities for surprise, but regardless it was a really rewarding experience.

A few things I really enjoyed: -Sound & Score: someone else here complained about the score (some of it seemed like real techno music but it was mostly original from what I can tell via Shazam) which was really great in helping to create a lonely but something is kind of off feeling. My fav movie of all time is 1979 Alien, and while ofc this movie isn't close to that, one thing they do is use the score perfectly to create the mood and sounds to build tension and keep you off kilter. It's just something I love in a movie personally and you don't get a lot of it, it's very hard to pull off even if it might sound Easy.

-Setting: this movie is set in Thailand but they used it in a really unique way. I've seen movies and shows (especially travel non fiction) set in Thailand and it always feels the same for the most part - hectic Bangkok at night, food stalls, seedy bars with prostitution, etc. Here we see a different side of Thailand though - the high-end resorts and beaches in less populated areas, luxury, the way they shot some of of the tourists transport to make it feel more lonely/ominous..really cool stuff.

-Plot: since I watch a lot and read a lot I think I'm usually pretty good at predicting what's going to happen. I have to admit, I did predict the very last thing that happens in the movie, since the clues were laid out for that to happen. Just about everything else though I did not see coming. Kind of a genre bender at times between Horror, Thriller, and Travel which I thought the tonal shifts really worked, again something that usually doesn't.

-Acting: I personally thought most of the acting was ok nothing great or bas - except for the girl who played CW (birth mark face) I thought she was fantastic. Especially early on when we see her Modulate her personality with the second influencer she meets. I think we will see her again.

So what are the negatives then? I would say the one thing I could've used even a couple of more pieces of exposition about, and I think they easily could've been weaved in through us seeing something on the laptop screen or subtext from an out of context comment by CW to someone - is to know a little more about her backstory. Unless I missed it I really didn't feel like I knew anything about why she did what she did or how she started doing it or why she was in Thailand or if she had any hard lessons in the past etc. It seems like she had being doing this for a long time but then other clues make it seem like she hasn't while other other clues make it seem like she is super experienced and even just like 2-3 more min total run time in this movie, you could still maintain the mystery but with a couple of details to make the character more compelling. I think what some writers forget sometimes is that over explaining or too much exposition is bad and kills the viewers imagination and the mystery in a story like this - but not enough can make the character feel less compelling and a little more flat, generic, or archetypical but not in a good way - more like a cartoon bad than a real person forged from lived experience.

Anyway, I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes unsettling movies, movies shot in atypical locations, etc. Worth a watch

I would compare it to the movie Drive with Ryan Gosling in its feel. Drive is a better movie but they definitely share some DNA especially when it comes to the use of sound and music.

Influencer

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 2 November 2022]

It's easy to hate influencers. It's simple to say social media has ruined everything. And yet, to look into oneself and the world and realize that these things just magnify how bad things are and therefore, it's easy to blame the shiny and pretty people, because no society functions without a scapegoat.

Kurtis David Harder directed Spiral and this is worlds better than that film. Along with co-writer Tesh Gutti, he tells the story of Madison (Emily Tennant), a social influencer in Thailand who meets up with CW (Cassandra Naud), a woman with a huge birthmark on her face and creeping darkness in her soul. She brigs Madison into her world, at first showing her how it's more real than her reality to taking photos of every meal and every outfit. As Madison lies about how much she's experiencing and pines for the end of her relationship to Ryan (Rory J. Saper), the man who got her into influencing in the first place, she's kidnapped to CW's special place on the island, a space that is as gorgeous as it is potentially deadly.

So yes, by all means hate on influencers, but do not miss this film, which just plain works.

I was shocked I enjoyed this...

[OneWithChihuahua · 7/10 · 29 May 2023]

If you would have asked me if I would ever watch a film titled "Influencer", the answer would be no. I assume that's where all these hate reviews are coming from. DO NOT take this movie at face value. That would be a mistake. It is well written, well-acted, and shot in a beautiful location.

I can see someone giving up early on. The true film doesn't start until about the 20 min mark. After that, I was glued to the screen. A completely believable occurrence by a mastermind villain. Less horror, more psychological thriller. I was only slightly annoyed by one scene, and without spoiling too much, the ending is quite satisfying. Go check it out!

Decent Thriller for the new modern AI world

[manuelgar-49653 · 7/10 · 26 May 2023]

First off in response to the other reviewer mattportch - not sure how that person was watching or listening to this film but I thought it sounded great, especially for clearly a low budget film, which is actually rare for a lot of what I watch on Shudder platform. Strong Cinematography that was enhanced by a great soundtrack and excellent sound edit- design. Film had some great use of AI technology, interesting and scary to see how that can be used to exploit someone. Good twists and generally okay performances. A little low on the suspense but the real horror is in fact the type of social commentary made here.

Shudder does good

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 10 June 2023]

Social media influencer Madison (Emily Tennant) is traveling alone in Thailand after her boyfriend Ryan (Rory J Saper) canceled on her. She spends all her time posting pictures of her food and being alone at the resort. She is befriended by CW (Cassandra Naud) who has a giant birth mark on her face. Jessica (Sara Canning) is another social media influencer.

It's a Shudder movie. This goes to show that good movies can come from anywhere these days. The premise is good. The performances are great especially from the ladies. The only thing is that the movie is obviously going back to the island for a final confrontation. I just thought that she would be taking one more character there.