Aahana Swrup
The Kurtis David Harder directorial ‘Influencer’ presents a psychological horror story about a solo trip gone wrong. The narrative finds Madison, an influencer, vacationing in Thailand, creating inspirational and worldly content from the confines of a lavish hotel complex. Although she had planned to take this trip with her boyfriend, Ryan, his infuriating change in plans has left her to solo-travel across the foreign country. For the same reason, she’s all the more happy to make a new friend, CW, a seasoned traveler who knows all the best spots and is willing to spend her similarly solo-trip exploring with the influencer. As a result, their easy friendship blinds Madison to the potential threat of trusting strangers.
Before Madison knows it, she has been left abandoned on a remote island without any way back home. With this inciting abandonment, the focus of the narrative shifts over to the anti-hero as she steals her victim’s luxurious life and sets her sights on her next target. By integrating a relevant aspect of culture and social media into its foundation, the Shudder film finds its footing in reality. As a result, the origins of the story and its potential basis in real life remain worth exploring.
Influencer is a Fictional Story That Dramatizes the Potential Dangers of Solo Travel
‘Influencer’ centers around the story of an anti-hero who runs a deadly scam wherein she targets vulnerable solo-traveling influencers in a bid to desert them on an unknown island and steal their lives. The film is largely a work of fiction with no direct inspiration from real-life people or incidents. As a result, CW’s character, her crimes, and her victims are all works of fiction created for the film by director Kurtis David Harder and his co-writer Tesh Guttikonda. Despite the lack of direct real-life inspiration, the story remains rooted in realistic fears and complications. This allows the psychological horror film to find moments of authenticity to resonate with the audience. Notably, the most prominent way CW’s narrative achieves this is by portraying a realistic issue with solo traveling and dramatizing it for exaggeration.
In the film, CW is a seasoned criminal who routinely seduces solo-travelers into an easy friendship with her, only to then abuse that trust to lure them out in the middle of nowhere and leave them to die. In a conversation with Eye For Film, the director spoke about the same and said, “The first one (‘Influencer’) was this exploration of our trust in foreign places. It was about the idea that we travel all the way around the world, and if you find something familiar, then you’re immediately going to trust it, even though you probably wouldn’t trust the same thing back home.” CW’s characterization as a deceivingly friendly face hinges upon the same philosophy, bringing attention to the dangers of letting one’s guard down in the face of familiarity.
Alternatively, while the premise of the story itself remains fictional, the circumstances that Madison experiences as a solo traveler find some authentic footing in reality. For instance, even though 2025 research shows that 45% of women are interested in solo traveling, 70 to 84% of them have primary concerns about their safety before and during their first trip. Furthermore, stolen passports continue to be one of the most prominent issues surrounding travel in general. According to Global Rescue, between travellers from the US, Canada, and the UK, nearly 400,000 passports are stolen on a yearly basis. As a result, the inciting circumstances that inform the direction of CW’s crime and Madison’s situation stem from realistic concerns and worries solo travellers might face off-screen. Ultimately, this helps in shaping the fictional tale into a realistic and relatable horror story.
Influencer Grounds Itself Through Realistic and Modern Themes
While ‘Influencer’ finds some realistic narrative beats in its crime-related storylines, another crucial aspect of the tale stems from its connection to the modern world of social media. As the title suggests, influencer culture remains a key foundational pillar throughout the narrative, shaping the characters, their experiences, and their motives. Much of Madison’s characterization and CW’s vague hatred toward her revolve around the former’s occupation as a content creator and influencer, who professionally works in social media for a living.
Furthermore, the story particularly doesn’t shy away from showcasing the ever-evolving nature of technology and its proposed threats to everyday life.
Notably, the director Kurtis David Harder and his team get to explore further upon this topic in the second film, ‘Influencers,’ which takes a deeper dive into this thematic aspect of CW’s story. Still, instrumental threads of it can be found in the first film, where the anti-hero uses modern technology not only to steal Madison’s life and finances but also to cover up the reality of her kidnapping. Ultimately, this improves the film’s contemporary setting, rooting it firmly and recognizably in the early 2020s time period. Thus, even though there are no real-life records of a serial killer who targets social media influencers, the modernity of the idea and its execution lend the film some level of realism and authenticity.
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