🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair smells of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their 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 without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have 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 appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.