🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair stinks of a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling 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 cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. 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 that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.