🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this reeks of a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as 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 near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.