🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (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 on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) 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 employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.