There is something pretty horrible about the idea of being destroyed online and then having the internet become the place where you come back from the dead, which is the setup for Rinrada (Also known as The Influencer), a Thai horror-thriller that takes social media obsession, public backlash and influencer culture and gives the whole thing a supernatural twist.
From Influencer to Nightmare
Rinrada has built her life around being watched, followed and talked about, but the attention eventually turns against her, and after the backlash becomes unbearable and she takes her own life, she returns as a supernatural presence with a very different relationship with the people who once made her famous.
There is also an interesting twist to her second life – she only has 7 days before she is forgotten completely – so that turns the usual revenge-ghost setup into something tied directly to the world that created her, where her existence depends on people remembering her, while the same online culture that made her visible in the first place is also responsible for destroying her.
The Social Media Horror Angle
This is where Rinrada could get particularly dark, as while there have been plenty of horror films about social media, influencers and people becoming obsessed with being famous done before, the idea here is slightly different because the internet isn’t just being used as a backdrop for the horror – online attention is effectively part of the supernatural mechanics.
Rinrada needs to be remembered, which makes likes, followers, comments, gossip and online outrage potentially much more important than they would normally be in a ghost story, where the person who was once desperate for attention now has a supernatural reason to keep people talking about her.
It also gives the film plenty of room to play around with the ugly side of internet fame – the fact that people can build somebody up, tear them apart and then move on to the next person almost immediately.
Which makes the 7-day countdown particularly fitting.
Yoshi Rinrada Gets the Lead
The casting is probably the first thing most people will notice here because Yoshi Rinrada Thurapan is playing Rinrada herself – Yoshi is a Thai actress and model who won Miss Tiffany’s Universe 2017, the Thai transgender women’s beauty pageant, so putting her into the role of an influencer whose identity is so heavily tied to appearance, public attention and online perception feels like a pretty deliberate choice.
She is joined by Khunnarong Pratesrat, who plays Por, and Nutthacha Padovan as Hanna, with Sutirod Seepach, Phumhirun Boonpa, Pariya Wongrabieb, Siripanya Jantila and Somlek Sakdikul also among the cast.
The film is directed by Artistaya Arriyawongsa, also credited as Athit Ariyawongsa, who is part of the writing team alongside Karnthi Phothidara, Aekawitch Longcharoen, Areeya Suwanpaporn and Ariya Chunpratheepthong, and production comes from THAM Studio 19 and Fearfolks, with the film listed at around 115 minutes, although some listings currently give slightly different runtime figures – it will have its Thai theatrical release on 20 August 2026.
There Is a Pretty Good Idea Underneath This
The thing I like about the premise is that it doesn’t need to invent some ancient curse or complicated mythology to explain why Rinrada becomes a monster, becase the horror is coming from something extremely modern – being watched, being judged, being hated by strangers, and then being forgotten.
Influencer culture is built around the idea that disappearing from people’s feeds is almost the same thing as disappearing altogether, so turning that into an actual supernatural rule is a clever bit of horror logic, and the film’s tagline sums up the attitude rather nicely – “From a victim… to everyone’s… nightmare.”
Trailer
The promotional material seems to lean fairly heavily into the contrast between Rinrada’s public image and what she becomes after death, which is probably the right approach for a film where the whole point is that the person people thought they knew online may be very different once the screen stops protecting them.
Check out some more Thai horror movies.
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