The Slick Sequel Continues to Take Down Social Media

If Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley existed today, who knows what murderous mischief he would have gotten himself into using AI and deepfake technology? Canadian director Kurtis David Harder once again hazards a tasty, globe-trotting guess with Influencers, the sequel to his surprisingly pretty good 2022 thriller, Influencer. The new film picks up a year after the original, with Cassandra Naud’s CW and her sociopathic tendencies taking a vacation in the south of France until an entitled social media influencer reawakens her killer instincts.

Possibly emboldened by his previous success, Harder’s work feels more confident here as he delivers even more glossy locations and a more complicated and twisty plot. Sometimes that confidence gets the better of him, as his depiction of CW’s online mastery often stretches credibility, even if it’s all in the name of low-budget fun. And, as with Influencer, his criticism of online and social media culture is not particularly trenchant or ultimately even damning, although he does get in some choice licks, including a couple of political sideswipes. But both films really come down to Naud, who is clearly enjoying herself, and so are we, to the point where CW would be justified in booking a flight to another far-flung corner of the world for a welcome trilogy capper.

Much of the intrigue in these films is that we’re not entirely sure what to make of CW, other than she enjoys killing people who have social media followings. Influencers maintains that sense of mystery with CW quite happy and murder-free with her French girlfriend, Diane (Lisa Delamar). For their one-year anniversary, the couple drives to a small French town where the seemingly reformed murderess has booked a romantic stay at a local hotel. Harder, who shared screenwriting credit last time but takes sole credit here, makes a healthy connection between social media stardom and entitled behavior when the hotel bumps the couple from their suite thanks to obnoxious British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell). Throughout the series, we’ve never gotten the sense that we’re supposed to applaud the bloody dispatching of an influencer or that we’re supposed to implicate ourselves for making their ilk famous. That’s always felt a bit disappointing, but at least when CW takes her revenge on such a quote-unquote celebrity, it has the benefit of kicking Influencers into gear.

One of the sequel’s upsides is that Harder finds fresh new targets to slash, choke, and punch. Most of these are introduced with the arrival of Madison (Emily Tennant), who survived the ending of the first film and even managed to strand CW on a remote Thai island. Since returning to America to rebuild her life, hordes of amateur online sleuths have proclaimed Madison guilty of the murders committed by CW, although she was cleared by the police. Even a seemingly friendly podcast interview goes sideways when the quasi-journalistic hosts question her alibis (right before launching into an ad-read for something called Strong Ape VPN, complete with ape sound effects). At wit’s end, Madison spots CW on Charlotte’s Instagram and flies to France to face the psychopath who ruined her life.

Returning cinematographer David Schuurman supplies the very pretty pictures of France, while his drone cameras up the production value and even provide a ticklishly clever final shot. He also squeezes much beauty out of Bali, where Madison meets Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), a live-streaming Andrew Tate wannabe. In a film series that identifies but doesn’t truly comment on online culture, Harder thankfully betrays his negative feelings towards a manosphere jackass like Jacob, who vomits A-type garbage he doesn’t even believe. Instead, he’s beholden to his girlfriend, Ariana (Veronica Long), the creator of his online persona and “new conservative icon” who believes that the “gender ideology cult is coming for your children.” While Jacob initially has his eyes on the controversial Madison to boost his page views, he eventually winds up in the middle as Madison gets closer to her inevitable showdown with CW.

With key nods to the first film — including the death of an unidentified character in the first scene and opening credits that roll about 30 minutes in — Harder wisely gives the series some signature beats. Otherwise, he shrewdly deepens CW and Madison’s characters enough to keep us intrigued but not enough to answer every question. Most questions are raised by wondering how CW is able to pull off some of her tech-heavy deceptions. Indeed, if CW ever wants to truly go straight, OpenAI or Amazon’s Alexa app could benefit from expertise that skirts being a bit ridiculous.

With a little push, the Influencer series could go into a more satirical direction. But Harder seems content to serve up exotic locales, zero-percent-body-fat tourists, buckets of blood, and two characters ready to chase each other to the ends of the earth. On that basis, Influencers delivers the goods and even throws in some light condemnation of online culture for the price of a Shudder subscription. Meanwhile, with the mystery of where Season 4 of The White Lotus will shoot now solved, we can move on to wondering which picturesque location Madison and CW will end up in next.

Release Date

December 12, 2025

Runtime

110 minutes

Director

Kurtis David Harder

Writers

Kurtis David Harder

Producers

Jack Campbell, Chris Ball, Kurtis David Harder, Micah Henry, Rebecca Campbell, Taylor Nodrick

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  Georgina Campbell

  Charlotte