🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair smells of a bad TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual 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 story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.