🔗 Share this article

“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.