🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

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 deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.