🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by 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 further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.