🔗 Share this article

“The entire situation reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with 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, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.