🔗 Share this article

“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers 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 digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.