When I was making my feature The Way You Dance in Vancouver earlier this year, I was invited to a Royal Bank of Canada event in partnership with the Whistler Film Festival. There, I bumped into Cassandra Naud and Emily Tennant, the two leads of Influencer, a thriller feature I had caught on Shudder. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was a Canadian production shot in Vancouver—and that both lead actors were Canadian as well. I remember Influencer as a smart, character-driven thriller centered on a psychopath (played by Naud) who takes over the identities and assets of her victims, all of whom are influencers.
From our conversation at the party, Cassandra and Emily told me that they just finished Influencers and were going to screen the feature film at the Whistler Film Festival. And just this past weekend, Shudder dropped the sequel on their platform.
Influencers, the sequel, opens with CW (Naud) attempting to pursue a normal life in France, but she cannot suppress her psychopathic tendencies. Meanwhile, Madison (Tennant), whose reputation has been destroyed by CW’s murders, sets off on a cat-and-mouse chase that tracks CW all the way to Bali, Indonesia, where the Grand Guignol ultimately unfolds.
As a horror and thriller fan, I look forward to the continued evolution of this original and smart genre franchise.
