🔗 Share this article

“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade 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, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses 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 does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.