How to Make a Glossy Hitchcockian Thriller — on an Indie Budget

"Influencers" writer/director Kurtis David Harder tells IndieWire about maximizing his resources to make a globetrotting suspense film without breaking the bank.

Writer/director Kurtis David Harder‘s 2023 thriller “Influencer” is the best kind of indie genre film, a smart, funny, chilling look at the intersection between sociopathy and social media that was as visually expressive as it was thematically rich. Unlike so many low-budget thrillers that restrict themselves to limited locations and diminished ambitions, “Influencer” is expansive in its pleasures, with gorgeous Thailand locations and an impressive sense of scale.

“Influencer” was a discovery that took genre fans by surprise, a luxury Harder wouldn’t be afforded when he set out to make a sequel. Fully aware of heightened expectations that the fans would have of him — and that he, in fact, had of himself — Harder took inspiration from “Aliens,” “The Godfather Part II,” and other sequels that doubled down on the satisfactions of their predecessors and made “Influencers,” which drops today on Shudder, even bigger and better than the original.

“Influencers,” which continues the adventures of deranged psychopath CW (Cassandra Naud) as she starts a new life with girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in the South of France — the first of several spectacular locations in which Harder sets his twisty story, which also features breathtaking vistas and architecture in Bali. Cinematographer David Schuurman takes full advantage of the surroundings, fully capturing their vivid beauty while also creating a palpable sense of menace; it’s a movie that invites (at one point via an explicit homage) and earns comparison with one of the most gorgeous thrillers of all time, Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief.”

Of course, “To Catch a Thief” was a generously budgeted studio movie shot in VistaVision, whereas Harder was working on a more modest independent scale. So how did he create one of the most spectacularly beautiful and visually varied movies of 2025 without Hitchcock’s resources?

According to Harder, it came down to perfecting a methodology he implemented on 2020 drama “Summerland,” in which a stripped-down crew allowed the cast and filmmakers to be more mobile and nimble.

“I made that film with around six friends, including myself and the actors and my co-director [Noah Kentis],” Harder told IndieWire. “We made this little road trip movie with just six people driving down the coast in an RV.” When it came time to make “Influencer,” Harder decided to try to apply the same approach to a thriller. “We went to Thailand totally under the radar with 11 people and traveled all over the country.”

The idea, Harder said, was to treat the movie like a documentary and not be bogged down by the logistics and machinery of massive company moves. “The gear was essentially anything we could fit in a van,” Harder said, adding that evolving drone technology and other technical innovations have made making a great looking film for a price more possible than ever before. Although he knew the success of “Influencer” meant he would have a bigger budget and crew for “Influencers,” he still tried to keep the “pseudo-documentary” sensibility of the original.

“We were trying to avoid the balloon that gets bigger as you expand the crew,” Harder said. “Once the crew gets bigger, you need more infrastructure to handle it. You need more transportation, you need more of everything.” For “Influencers,” Harder only let the crew get big on specific days when it was warranted, such as a club scene with hundreds of extras. “We hired another AD and more crew people for that day, but for most of the shoot we’re keeping it under 15 or 20 people.”

That allowed Harder to give his film the dynamic international flavor it has by trading personnel for more shooting days, and making the most of those shooting days by spending as little time as possible on logistics. “It allowed us to get in and out of locations quickly and to shoot over a period of five months traveling between France, Bali, and North America,” Harder said. In each country, Harder secured a production services company to help with location scouting and scheduling, and created a rigorous plan to make sure he’d be prepared for any unseen challenges. Working with a minimal crew, however, meant he could deviate from that plan easily whenever a better idea came along.

“There were a couple of times where we saw something just driving by and said ‘Oh, we can shoot this sequence over there, let’s go,'” Harder said. “I think a little bit of fluidity like that is key — having a very strong plan that you can throw out on the day. We go in knowing exactly how we want something to work, but we’re hoping for three or four happy accidents every day. Having extra time allows for that; when you’re shooting two to four pages a day instead of 10, you have a lot more flexibility to find some magic. Whereas when you’re rushing and have to get your shot list exactly as you planned it, that’s just not really possible.”

The extra time also pays off in terms of the performances, which are uniformly terrific. Harder’s sly script walks a fine line between satire and horror that’s perfectly served by the actors’ flawlessly calibrated characterizations, another thing Harder things is more achievable by giving everyone more time. “It’s very liberating,” Harder said. “There are fewer people, but they’re all on the movie for a longer period of time and that allows everyone to become close and explore.”

It also meant the casting process required Harder to look beyond the usual criteria of which actor was right for each role. “You’re not only casting for performance, you’re casting personalities who are going to fit and be willing to go on this crazy adventure, because it’s strenuous. They’re difficult shoots. We’re traveling every day without many breaks. But everybody signing up knows that. Everybody’s wearing multiple hats. Cassandra designed all the wardrobe, for example — she was the costume designer while also being the lead of the movie.”

Although the multitasking led to stress at times, Harder feels the extra work on everyone’s part paid off in the form of fully realized ambitions at both the script and performance level. “I have friends who shoot movies in 13 or 14 days, and you’re halfway through the shoot when the actors say, ‘Oh, I finally know who this character is,'” Harder said. “So, for me, the key is just to allow the actors to really find things. That’s the benefit of a longer shoot, and the benefit of doing a sequel where you’re returning to characters you’ve lived with for so long. It’s a luxury that you don’t see much in modern filmmaking.”

“Influencers” is now streaming on Shudder, and will play at select Alamo Drafthouse theaters on Monday, December 15.