Released: 13th December
Seen: 12th December
In 2023, Shudder released Influencer which was immediately a critical hit and got pretty good viewership numbers, at least good enough to warrant making a sequel. Now, at the time I was one of the few who didn’t love the film, I thought it had good ideas but I wasn’t a fan of the execution. Upon a recent rewatch I’ve slightly changed my mind, mostly because the central performance of the character CW grew on me. It still felt a little bit lackluster to me, but it moved to just being generally good so I was hopeful about the sequel… and sure enough, Influencers turned out to be absolutely brilliant.
Influencers takes place shortly after Influencer where the original survivor Madison (Emily Tennant) is trying her best to warn people about the mysterious killer known as CW (Cassandra Naud) that she managed to escape, however not only do people not believe her but the internet is slowly starting to spread rumours that Madison is the one who killed her boyfriend and everyone else from the last movie. Determined to prove that she wasn’t making it up, Madison goes back to the island where she first met CW to try and hunt her down. CW, meanwhile, is starting to make something of a life for herself with her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) but old habits die hard and CW’s obsessions with murder and online culture put her on a course to take on the alpha-bro streamer Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell) on as her next big project.
In the first film in the franchise, there were clearly a lot of great ideas around how the film viewed online culture and in particular influencers, which gave it something fun to work with. This time though, the film leans into the darker side of online culture, conspiracy theorists and those annoying alpha bros who claim to sleep with dozens of women while clearly hating anything even remotely feminine and with that as its core target, the film sinks its teeth in and just rips them to shreds. A more notably cruel target means the jokes can be a lot more pointed and sharp – sharp enough to draw blood. It’s needling at how these alpha bros are really just pathetic losers is hilarious, watching their fans not even care if they live or die feels pointed and seeing how easily they drop the schtick of being an alpha bro the second someone actually stands up to them… it’s all so gloriously delicious that you want to eat it up with a spoon.
Once again, the actress playing CW knocks it out of the park. She was pretty great in the first one (even when I didn’t like the film, she was an undeniable highlight) and this one she’s letting loose and going for it. The difficult thing about a sequel to a film that relied so heavily on a reveal that a certain character was a monster the whole time is that you have to accept the audience knows who the villain is this time so there is no surprise, you either find something new to shock everyone with or you just revel in the villainy… this film both humanises CW a lot more by giving her a relationship but also makes her so much more twisted than before. Her murders are more brutal, more shocking, and more gruesome, which helps make this a more interesting film.
In general, it feels like Influencers really is just everything that worked last time only more so, plus with actually interesting characters thrown in. Having the main villain’s target be an alpha bro is hilarious, timely and makes for fun characters. Even little side characters who get thrown in for one scene are at least enjoyable enough to keep your attention. All these fun characters set in a gorgeous locale (Seriously, the scenery is insanely gorgeous and somehow tops the original’s locations) make the film so much more enjoyable. I want to spend time with these characters, I want some of them to survive and when some of them meet the pointy end of something, it’s fun in the way a good slasher should be.
Influencers absolutely won me over to this franchise, showing what its potential could be and having endless amounts of fun while doing it. It’s an absolute insane joyride that goes all out even as the credits roll. It elevates CW from a slightly interesting one-off horror villain to an enjoyable and fascinating creation who could easily carry several more films in this universe. There’s just a lot of fun to be had with Influencers, it gets one big like from me.
Movie Meister Reviews 