🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.