Influencer - L'isola delle illusioni

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!

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.

Actually, i was expecting a movie like heyyy i have come here to sit and have a snack while watching this chill movie. But hell no !

The first thing that caught my interest is how tyland is wonderful but it's not the main thing. Also, the movie actually starts around the middle.

I'm not the person that usually finish every movie like that. Because when my snacks over, my eyes suddenly want to be closed. But no no no sir. I didn't need well rested eyes. My eyes want to be know whats next, whats next ?

So i doubled my snacks then concentrate. ( Yea i'm fat ) but totally worth it.

My rate is not 10 but nice 7.

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.

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.