Influencer (2023)

A Horror Movie for the Social Media Age

Horror movies are an ideal medium to explore the dark side of social media. It’s no surprise that genre films about social platforms have proliferated in recent years. Influencer, which recently premiered on the streaming app Shudder, is one of the stronger recent examples of this relatively new subgenre.

Madison (Emily Tennant) is a vapid social media influencer who is vacationing solo in Thailand. She makes videos about her supposedly glamorous vacation while hawking products made by her sponsors.

Her real life is far less glorious. She is upset that her boyfriend decided not to accompany her to Thailand and is considering breaking up with him. When she’s not making videos, Madison spends her time hanging out at bars and moping around her luxury rental house. Her departure home is delayed when someone breaks in and steals her passport.

A Mysterious New Friend

Madison’s life brightens when she meets a beautiful and mysterious stranger with an unusual birthmark on her face. C.W. (Cassandra Naud), is confident, adventurous, and knows all the best tourist hotspots.

Madison is immediately drawn to her. She has a great time with her new pal, right up to the point where C.W. drugs her and leaves her for dead on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere.

With Madison out of the way and presumed dead, C.W. gets to work assuming her identity. She takes over her accounts and announces, as “Madison”, that she is planning to take a break from social media.

C.W. has fun pretending to be Madison at first. But she quickly grows bored and begins to target another influencer, Jessica (Sara Canning). Her plans are complicated when Madison’s boyfriend Ryan (Rory Saper) unexpectedly arrives and demands to know the whereabouts of his erstwhile girlfriend. C.W. does her best to distract, manipulate, and seduce him.

A Cunning Villain

The movie suggests that C.W. has gone through this cycle many times before. She is apparently has a long history of targeting social media influencers. Her motives are never made explicitly clear. She seems driven by loneliness, a desire for attention, and a profound distaste for the emptiness and superficiality of social media.

Influencer has a good cast. Cassandra Naud steals the show as a cold-blooded narcissistic psychopath who uses charm and sex appeal to manipulate her victims. Emily Tennant gives a solid performance as Madison, but the script rarely gives us a reason to sympathize with her. Same goes for Rory Saper as Ryan. All of the characters would have benefited from more complex characterization.