“The entire situation reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.
2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.
This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.
CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?
The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.
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 eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.
The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.
It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.
All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.
At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.
The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.
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