Influencers threads a tricky needle: it pokes at the attention economy with a knowing grin while mostly dodging the smugness that sinks a lot of social satire. Director Kurtis David Harder returns to the world of Influencer and finds an agile way to keep the story going after that first film’s seemingly final grace note. The sequel opens the aperture without losing the clean, nasty pleasures of watching a shapeshifter navigate vapid luxury ecosystems and weaponize them against their owners.
Cassandra Naud again plays CW, now living quietly in Southern France with her girlfriend Diane, played by Lisa Delamar, as if she were never the hurricane that blew through the last movie. That illusion cannot hold. Madison, the lone survivor from before and played by Emily Tennant, crawls back into the narrative with vengeance in mind, and CW bolts for Bali where the ground keeps shifting under her feet. Harder and co-writers keep the premise simple and the geography legible, then let coincidence and clout-chasing do the rest.
The sequel’s best trick is moral whiplash. CW functions like a slasher icon who refuses to stay down, but Naud plays her with enough poise and jitter to keep you toggling between complicity and recoil. She is competent, occasionally sloppy, and very human in the few beats when the mask slips. As a franchise center she is compelling because she can be both the wolf and the tour guide, ushering us through a menagerie of marks who happily volunteer themselves.
The new supporting cast pops. Georgina Campbell embodies the high-gloss, high-needs archetype in the opening movement. Jonathan Whitesell and Veronica Long give Jacob and Ariana the brittle chemistry of a brand-first couple. Dylan Playfair, fresh off the rhythms of Letterkenny, steals scenes as the clueless friend who says the quiet part out loud. Their various schemes and house rules make for easy satirical targets, and the movie finds just enough sting in the punchlines without turning into a lecture.
Harder’s direction is brisk and unfussy. He favors clean setups, clear cause and effect, and a few sharp punctuation marks when things go blood simple. The satire tilts broad, but the mechanics are tight, and the film is careful about how phones, followers, and FOMO become both motive and method. A handful of gags land because the edit knows to cut one beat earlier than you expect.
It is not without ceiling. Some dynamics repeat from Influencer, a few reversals require generous buy-in, and the third act leans on luck in ways you can feel. Yet the movie keeps finding new rooms for CW to work, new petty vanities to tease, and new angles on the same foundational joke: an industry built on performance is very easy to perform against.
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As a Shudder follow-up, Influencers is lively, mean in the right ways, and proof that there is enough juice here for at least one more round. Cassandra Naud carries the thing like a seasoned franchise anchor, which she now is. If Harder can keep the tone this spry, I will happily let CW talk me into another trip.
Score: 7/10
Influencers (2025)
- Cast: Cassandra Naud, Lisa Delamar, Georgina Campbell, Jonathan Whitesell, Veronica Long, Dylan Playfair
- Director: Kurtis David Harder
- Genre: Horror, Thriller
- Runtime: 110 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: December 12, 2025
- Movies Like Influencers: Strange Darling, Old, Barbarian
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