Director Kurtis David Harder on Pushing the Envelope with His Horror Sequel Influencers
Behind the scenes photo of director Kurtis David Harder. Courtesy of Shudder.
Writer and director Kurtis David Harder's Influencers is the rare sequel that surpasses the first film. Influencers builds on the characters from Influencer and doubles down on the thrills, comedy, and twists, and featuring another brilliant performance from Cassandra Naud, who reprises her role as CW.
Set in France, Influencers follows CW, who lives a quiet, peaceful life with her girlfriend, Diane (Lisa Delamar). Diane is unaware of CW's obsession with murder and stolen identities. During an anniversary getaway, the two cross paths with an influencer named Charlotte (Georgina Campbell), whose curiosity disrupts their plans for a fun and relaxing anniversary. When CW acts on a violent impulse, it leads Diane to become increasingly suspicious of who CW really is, which threatens to crumble CW's perfectly crafted life.
It was important to Harder that Influencers was not a retread of Influencer. “We actually have something new to say, and we explore a couple of new sides of social media that we didn’t in the first film,” he says. “When we made the first film, ChatGPT wasn’t out, so there was none of that kind of ubiquitous AI use in culture. It was coming, and we could all see it around the corner, but we didn’t really know what it was going to be like. For me, it's more of the emotional and social consequences that I am interested in as a storyteller. I think coming into the first film, it's like ‘What are some of the dangers we can kind of see coming?’ and it's like identity theft or security online starts to disappear or erode. By the time the first film had come out, most of that stuff existed, so that was really funny for us, like ‘Oh, all this stuff is happening.’ Coming into Influencers, it's like ‘What is around the next corner?’ I think there are a lot of kinds of social things, like dealing with loss, that I think are going to feel normal, but [right now they] feel very strange and foreign to us. And [they] are probably going to be right around the corner if they aren’t already happening. I think, for me, with these films in particular, it is very much about contemporary online culture and looking at where we are going and what some of the pitfalls we might be falling into.”
Influencers. Courtesy of Shudder.
Since Influencers is bigger and more extravagant, Harder was able to accomplish some sequences that he originally wanted to do in Influencer. “In the original script for the first film, there was a big showdown between the girls at the end,” he states. “Due to weather constraints and the fact that we only had a limited amount of time to pull it off, it ended up being condensed into a smaller moment, which ultimately we were happy with. [For Influencers] we were able to go back to [that big showdown] and be like, ‘Let’s do that fight we really wanted to do.’”
Doing a sequel also allowed Harder to dive deeper into CW’s backstory. “With the first film, we were on purpose keeping things vague about where she comes from and who she really is behind the facades she plays up,” he says. “For Influencers, we wanted to dive deeper into who she is and where she might have come from. Obviously, she is still always putting on these faces, even with the French lifestyle she is living, she is playing a character. I think that’s what is so fun for me, and what has been so fun for Cass and me to explore. When all the barriers are broken back, who is she beneath all these faces she is putting on, because constantly, every time you are meeting her, even when it feels authentic, is it authentic, or is there still kind of this barrier that she’s putting up?”
Additionally, Harder had lots of fun exploring the different ways CW interacts with people. “We explored a very specific thing of travel influencer culture in the first film, and with [Influencers], we are kind of looking more into these online subcultures like ‘What would she do if she’s kind of put up against some different worlds,’” he comments.
Harder references what he calls “thriller lifestyle” movies and books like To Catch A Thief, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) as the main influences for the sequel. “CW is living a sort of fantasy 60s French lifestyle that she has kind of crafted and manufactured her life into,” he says. “Another funny [influence] would be The Lizzie McGuire Movie, just with identity fraud and travelling to Europe.”
Something that Harder wanted to lean into more for Influencers is the comedy. Influencer had some comedic moments, with Harder saying, “It’s very cheeky with some things,” but the sequel doubles down on the comedy. Letterkenny star Dylan Playfair, who plays Cameron in Influencers, generates many laughs with his one-liners and humorous facial expressions. “He just brought some really fun, almost levity to it,” Harder smiles. “He’s kind of the personification of the audience of just watching this chaos unfold around him and just being completely confused. I think that was so fun for Dylan and me to dive into, like he is just baffled by everything that is going on around him.”
Both Influencer and Influencers surprise viewers with an awesome title drop that happens well into the movie. “With Influencer, we were playing into that rug pull of like, ‘No, we are actually going to be completely shifting where we are going with this story,’” shares Harder. “Ultimately, it becomes a debate of whose story it really is. Is it Madison’s or is it CW’s… With Influencers, it is about reversals. In terms of the structure of the films, they are both very similar. But in terms of playing into who these characters have become and where we are starting off with them, it is a different kind of side to it.”
Much like the first film, Influencers is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Having a bigger budget gave Harder and the rest of the crew the freedom to really explore certain areas of Bali and France, using the stunning landscapes of each country to their full advantage. “When we have a slightly bigger canvas, how can we take everything that we did well with the first one in terms of locations and these beautiful spots and just kind of expand it,” Harder explains. “It was very fun to look at the whole country of like France, for example, and just figuring out where we want to find this chateau or castle, where do we want [CW] to live, and like seeing a photo of a place and being like ‘We want to shoot here. I have no idea where it is. Let’s find it.’ I think that was so much fun to explore.”
Overall, viewers can expect a thrillingly entertaining time with Influencers. “We took everything that was fun and worked about the first film and just turned it up,” Harder smiles.
Influencer is streaming now on Netflix. Influencers hits Shudder on December 12.