🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this reeks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

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 seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints 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, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget 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, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem 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 that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.