Of all the terrible fads birthed by the millennial internet – pastel pink, GIF keyboards, the phrase "Netflix and chill" – the Instagram influencer at least makes for a campy archetype on screen. Her presence – and it is unfailingly a her – in film and TV signals the arrival of something unhinged: she is either a stalking victim, or, worse, a Francophile; often conniving and always a liar.
Into this lineage drops Sissy, Australian writer-director duo Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes's second feature (following 2017's For Now). Acquired by horror streaming service Shudder ahead of its buzzy SXSW debut earlier this year, it's a truly oddball slasher comedy – though it makes the case, at least initially, that the influencer might just be … boring?
"I am loved. I am special. I am enough," its title character (Aisha Dee, The Bold Type) intones in the film's opening scenes, spouting rote mantras that even she struggles to believe. She's conducting a guided meditation for her adoring viewers that could easily double as a sleep aid, were it not for a brief interjection to plug the heinously named "Elon Mask" – a beauty product surely as slimy as its namesake.
