- Directed by: Kurtis David Harder
- Written by: Kurtis David Harder
- Stars: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Jonathan Whitesell
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgXdfZSsCuE
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” with Cassandra Naud back at it again. It was a little unclear at first if it was a prequel or sequel considering the ending of “Influencer,” but they decided to just gloss over a major issue with that ending without explaining it. That aside, it was well put together in beautiful settings, and we both mostly enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman gets a million notifications on her socials and cries. She then grabs a knife and cuts her own throat.
We cut to southern Fence, where Catherine, CW, is riding her bike. She goes home to Diane and they go out for a date. They have plans for the weekend, and they go to– no, they stop off at an abandoned castle to do some sightseeing. Nothing happens there, so they continue on to the castle that they have reserved.
When they arrive, the room is rented, so they get a tiny place instead. Catherine meets Charlotte, another guest, who complains about the size of the pool. She’s the one who got their special room and offers to buy their dinner. Turns out, Charlotte is an influencer. Catherine is clearly jealous, but Diane thinks she’s nice. They talk about how quickly Charlotte would shrivel up and die without her phone.
The next day, Catherine tells Charlotte that Diane is ill, and offers to be her photographer for the day. She knows just the place to get some great photos– that old castle again. Sure enough, they go up to the dangerous-looking tower Catherine visited earlier. One short push later, Charlotte is no more. Catherine has Charlotte’s phone and password, so she can use that. They soon end up in that room they reserved after Charlotte “runs off.”
Diane goes through all Catherine’s stuff and finds her passport. Her name isn’t even Catherine, and she has access to Charlotte’s account. “You’ve done this before. What were you doing in Thailand? Several girls were killed.” Catherine tries to convince her that she knows nothing about it, but one thing leads to another, and soon Diane is dead. Credits roll (30 minutes in).
We cut to a podcast explaining what happened at the end of the previous film. The murderer, CW, somehow got away. Madison White was the only survivor from all that carnage. The podcasters still don’t believe Madison’s story, whose story doesn’t quite check out. There’s no evidence that “CW” ever existed. Later, Madison reads how Charlotte’s body was found in France. Could there be a connection? Can she find proof? She’s still getting death threats and stalkers after getting blamed for all the murders.
Madison goes to France and starts following places where Charlotte had posted photos. She goes to the big chateau and asks about Catherine and Diane, but she doesn’t know what names they used. It’s kind of a dead end.
We cut to Bali, where Jacob, a “man-o-sphere” influencer, does his show. Ariana warns him that his audience is dwindling. He runs into Madison, who’s still looking for CW, and gets her phone number.
A while later, Jacob spots CW in a crows, and he recognizes her from the photo that Madison showed him. He tells CW all about Madison looking for her; he’s truly an idiot.
CW then returns to her lair and talks to an AI copy of Diane, who talks just like the original. She uses the AI to figure out who Jacob is and where to find him– and Madison as well. She then uses AI to reconstruct Diane’s face well enough to talk to Diane’s own mother over Facetime.
CW talks to Jacob and tells him about the stalker that keeps accusing her of terrible things. She’s got quite a story for him. Later, she gets into his computer and gets access to everything. While there, she runs into Ariana, who threatens to call the police. CW leaves, but also tells her that she slept with Jacob, Ariana’s boyfriend.
We cut to Paris, one year ago. CW has moved there after the Thailand incident, and wears a hoodie to hide her distinctive birthmark. We see how she met Diane and fell in love. It’s a whole extended flashback thing, and it appears that CW wasn’t using Diane the way she manipulated the other influencers. She didn’t really mean to kill her, it just happened.
Back in the present, Ariana calls Jacob’s friend Cameron, who tells her that Jacob wants to break up with her. Cameron never liked Ariana, and he wants to get rid of her. CW posted a video of Jacob having sex with another woman, and Ariana’s getting a lot of notifications. Not long after, Arian kills herself, which we saw in the opening scene.
Jacob tells Cameron that he thinks he’s onto a murderer, and Cameron thinks he’s crazy.
Jacob goes home and finds Madison standing over Ariana’s dead body and jumps to the wrong conclusion. They argue– who’s been playing whom? Well, that doesn’t matter because Madison then stabs Jacob. The two girls then fight for quite a while. Eventually, Madison knocks out her opponent, steals her phone, and learns where CW’s “lair” is.
Madison talks to the AI Diane as she searches the place and finds murder victim photos. Meanwhile, Jaxob recovers a bit and unties CW, whom he assumes is the victim now. He soon looks at Ariana’s phone and learns the truth. This time, CW stabs him a few more times.
Except Jacob’s computer on, livestreaming to CW’s lair, where Madison and “Diane” have seen rebroadcast the whole thing on social media. Her guilt is proven, but she’s not completely unhappy about the attention. Cameron walks in, and she guts him in front of everyone.
Brian’s Commentary
This is a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” and, as before, the settings are amazing. I liked the first one, and I liked this one as well. It’s got enough twists and turns, and most of the people who die kinda have it coming, so I’d call it a win.
Kevin’s Commentary
It reminded me a bit of the Mr. Ripley character from his conniving adventures advancing himself at the deadly expense of others and having to keep up on the damage control.
At first I was going to go with this being a prequel because they didn’t explain it for the first half hour. But then they showed us that they figured out how to milk it out as a sequel despite the ending of “Influencer.” How do we explain how she got off the island? Just don’t and hope we don’t mind. I’ll overlook that annoying point enough to call it a win.
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