🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.