🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this smells of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.