🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But 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 lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.