🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.