🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this reeks like a bad TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.