“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.
Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage
The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.
This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.
CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?
Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits
The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.
The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.
Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue
The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.
It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.
All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.
Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension
Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.
The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.
