🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during 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 description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear 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 through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way 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 that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.