Dark Film Review: The Influencer

Review by Casey Douglass

Social media is the amplifier of our time. Whatever you bring to it, it boosts it and shoots it out to other people who think like you do, while its algorithms feed similar themes from others, back to you. Certain people become very well known, gaining a massive following that businesses with bundles of cash eye greedily as an untapped revenue stream. The Influencer is a dark comedy thriller that follows one such popular person as they grapple with their “brand”, the lucrative contract that comes their way, and the forces that want to use them as a pawn in their own machinations.

Abbie Rose (Kasia Szarek) is a fashion, makeup and lifestyle vlogger, trying to manage her business and her brand. Nutrocon, an exploitative cosmetic company that treats women badly, tests on animals and pollutes the environment, offers her a tasty contract, one which promises to ease her money worries. Abbie signs and a short time later finds herself suffering a home invasion by bickering masked activists. What then unfolds is a manipulative scheme, one with Abbie as the key component, the activists making use of her large following, her image and the power of technology, to try to pull off their aims.

As a thriller, The Influencer does present the viewer with a number of mysteries to ponder, and I felt that it did a decent job of answering these questions as the story ticked along. I did successfully guess what was happening a number of times, but there were certainly moments that I didn’t see coming. One of these happened almost at the ending, where the actions of one of the characters did cause me to reappraise my opinion about them, which was a pleasing and satisfying surprise.

When a film sees its characters make use of technology or the internet, how these actions are portrayed becomes very important if the viewer has any hope of following along. Thankfully, The Influencer does a really good job of mimicking and representing the social-media apps and websites integral to the story, a smooth, clear user-interface sitting comfortably over the live action beneath. Another aspect that I really enjoyed was Thomas Yount’s electronic, retro-feeling score. It felt like just the right kind of soundtrack, both warm and bouncy yet dark and ominous too.

There is humour in The Influencer, but I have to admit that most of it wasn’t really to my own taste. The element that I found most humorous were the jokes that poked fun at the frequent shallowness of social media, particularly the scenes where Abbie’s captives threatened to release her private, “badly lit” pictures to the world if she didn’t play ball. This sees Abbie crumple to the ground in tears, fearing for her image and her brand, something that Kasia Szarek plays wonderfully. There is also a scene early in the film, where a group of dead-eyed interns fail to be roused by Abbie’s enthusiasm, which did tickle me.

The Influencer is a quirky look at the dark side of how some influencers can behave when large financial enticements become a factor in their lives. Sure, it takes things to extremes, but how often do we see someone raving about the latest video-game, headphones or fashion accessory, and then never mention it again? One of the most poignant quotes from the film for me was “It’s crazy the kind of influence you have when no-one knows who you are!” I’d guess that extends to the influencer in question not knowing themselves properly either, which just goes to show how complicated us humans can be.

Look out for The Influencer from 14 September on streaming platforms including iTunes, Amazon and Google Play. It will also be available on DVD and through various cable and satellite TV services.

I was given access to a review copy of this film.

Film Title: The Influencer

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Production Company: Daisy Eagle Films, Wizard Cats

Distributor: Breaking Glass Pictures

Written, directed and produced by: Meghan Weinstein

Releases: 14 September 2021

Starring: Kasia Szarek, Shantelle Yasmine Abeydeera, Thea Cantos, Mark Valeriano, Victoria D. Wells, Ian Jones.

Music: Thomas Yount

Dark Film Review: Nerve

Dark Film Review: Nerve

Review by Casey Douglass

Nerve is one of those films that has been sitting on my Freeview recorder for a little while now. It sounded interesting, but I was just a bit “meh” about actually watching it. Luckily, the other day, I did finally decide to give it a chance, and I’m happy to report that I liked it far more than I expected to.

The Nerve of the title is an online dare game, one in which the participants have to complete dares for money, unless they “bail” or “fail”. When the participant signs up to be a Player (you can also be a Watcher), the Nerve platform harvests all of the online information about you that it can, which may or may not be used for your dares. If you are afraid of spiders, as an example, and you’ve posted about it, well, expect creepy goodness crawling up your arm at some point. Some dares also seem to be crowd-sourced, with people voting on what someone needs to do. There are also various rules, like it has to be filmed on the player’s own phone to count. Another rule is to keep Nerve secret, because “snitches get stitches”.

Vee (Emma Roberts) is a shy, geeky highschooler who lacks the confidence to make any of the important decisions in her life. Her friend Sydney (Emily Meade), tells her about Nerve and wants her to be one of her Watchers, as the more Watchers someone has, the higher up the ranking table they get. After Vee witnesses Sydney doing her dare, flashing her naked backside as a cheerleader at a football game, the pair have a falling out when Syndey embarrasses Vee with the guy she fancies. So, like any normal person, Vee rides home on her bicycle and decides to opt into a sketchy online dare platform. As you do. Completing her first dare brings her into contact with Ian (Dave Franco), and that’s contact beyond a mere “Howdi!” Their paths are then entwined for the rest of the film, as they both work together to complete the various tasks set them by Nerve.

Nerve is a slick film. From the computer graphics of watching people through see-thru mobiles and computers, to the various message exchanges and video recording that goes on, it all has a nice polished, technological aesthetic. Even Ian’s motorbike and various stretches of street lighting glow in neon colours. It just made the whole film quite “punchy” in the visual sense, and I enjoyed this. I didn’t really enjoy the soundtrack though, and in places I found it quite annoying, but that’s just due to the music not being to my taste.

The narrative flows along nicely, although there were a few scenes in which I questioned how much Vee could change in such a short period of time. I wouldn’t say that it wasn’t feasible, but certain things felt a bit overly contrived, the breakups and make-ups sometimes occurring in such a frictionless way, it just didn't feel real. I did like the interplay between Vee and Ian though, and the way that the dares tended to escalate. Many of the dares featured public embarrassment, and I could feel myself cringing as the characters had to navigate their way through them. The ending was relatively satisfying too, although for a film called Nerve, it felt like it played it a bit too safe for my liking.

In a way, the true star of the film for me was Nerve, the platform. A system that can scrape personal information from your social media profiles and other online activity, crunch it all and then turn it into a twisted dare-based challenge system? How creepy and brilliant at the same time. The topic of fear and daring to do stuff is also something almost anyone will connect with, the anxiety that pushing your comfort zone can bring, and the everyday feelings of “Oh, if I’d just taken that chance to say hello to that person, but I can’t”. Add people filming you as you try to do that very thing, and a whole new level of stress gets added to things. As I said, you’ll probably cringe along to a good few of the dares, and that’s not even mentioning the ones that put people in physical danger.

Nerve was a film that I really enjoyed, and one that fits into stuff that I find really interesting. It aligns with some of the other books and films that I’ve enjoyed, such as The Diceman by Luke Rhinehart, which is a guy basically “self-daring” with dice, and even non-fiction stuff like Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang, a book written by someone who filmed himself getting rejected so that he could challenge himself to overcome it. Add in the technology aspect to Nerve, and I found it to be quite gripping.

If you’ve not seen Nerve, check it out if you get the chance to.

Film Title: Nerve

Starring: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco

Genre: Thriller

Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Released: 2016

Distributor: Lionsgate

Dark Film Review - The Gift

I review Joel Edgerton's directorial debut film The Gift over on Amongst Geeks. A creepy film with some great acting from Mr Edgerton (and others) that gives you plenty to mull over after watching. Read my full review at this link.

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