Influencers is a satirical, self-aware, and empowering horror sequel to the 2022 Shudder hit Influencer starring Cassandra Naud and Emily Tennant. The film expands on its central characters’ fatal feud, driven by one’s hatred of social media and set against a backdrop of lavish houses and rich streamer poseurs. Naud yet again shines as the smartly psychotic Instagram hater, driving her stabs with self-described “chameleon” behavioral switches and seductive manipulation tactics—stabs backed by a tragic love story she accidentally ends with past slaughters.

A little over a year after Influencer‘s events—where the birthmarked killer then calling herself CW gets left on the island she attempted to leave then-famous influencer, Madison (Emily Tennant), on—CW, now going by Catherine, drinks French wines with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) for their first anniversary. Their expensive, well-in-advance-booked suite gets given without warning to a social media influencer named Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) for promotional purposes, whom they eventually bump into and become friendly with. Annoyed by Charlotte’s sudden cling to Diane, a jealous Catherine decides it’s best to rid herself and Diane of Charlotte, and chaos ensues. Meanwhile, Madison, now red-haired, entirely offline, and angered by the public’s disbelief in her being Catherine’s victim, is determined to expose or kill Catherine. As the pair eventually enter a cat and mouse hunt through white washed seaside resorts only stolen money can buy, and the lifestyles of Andrew Tate wannabes (plus how much they spew bullshit they don’t even live by), Catherine and Madison hash and slash out to Influence public perception and each other’s fates—all in the name of social media hatred.

It’s no secret that social media’s a complicated beast on its own. For the phone-glued masses, the various apps, functions, posting methods, ways of interacting with others, and types of content flood our handheld screens. With so much interactivity, culture, discourse, and, of course, content creators who profiteer naturally arise. Recently, such social media influencers—as Influencers deftly details—have become new platforms for disinformation, toxicity, and widespread norm-setting. While there are many (in this writer’s opinion) morally and ethically clearer creators spreading valuable knowledge, the loudest ones are also the jeeriest. Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, and other mostly white, straight/cis, and wealthy tyrants say and do the most shocking things—Tate, of course, has his many Romanian rape, human trafficking, and other sexual deviance court cases stain his already filthy record alongside his spews of male domination over women, entire financial focus, and emotions-equal-weakness mentality. Women may then be platformed for little beyond beauty/fitness, lifestyle, and other lighthearted forms of content, which may or may not encourage false empowerment whilst reinforcing similar stereotypes. Such bitter hatred for equality and ease of living between all has been misinterpreted for traditional role reinforcement loved by the ultra-right Christian groups, leading to much misplaced trust and fame. As the similarly amoral but older and very orange U.S. president further encourages such disgusting and binary behaviors, the very same streamers and social influencers have nowhere to go but up as they scam, slam, and slander away at everything just within the country, society at large, gender conversations, medical conspiracies, and more.

In short, social media sucks. Films like The Social Network show viewers why, and now, Influencers shows viewers how—at least when in the hands of a psychotic loner.

Catherine/CW, or whatever her real name is, is a fierce personification of social media’s worst-case effects. Throughout Influencers and its predecessor, she reminds herself, other characters, and viewers of its gross symptoms: “You poison the world…. You’re all so fake.” In the original, her quest seems driven by jealousy of what they have, dressing in wigs and photoshopping influencers’ faces onto hers for new photos on their accounts; she wanted to be seen, however temporarily. But here, she seems further strengthened in her resolve to, as fellow Hassle critic Joshua Polanski once noted, use “Influence as predation” for her string of victims. Especially now that she has a life with a new girl who accepts Catherine for her vaguely spoken-of past—”We’ve all done things we’re not happy with. It’s what we do with it that matters,” Diane reassures a sullen Catherine—her loathing for social media stars comes from a place of self-defense from what she delusionally perceives in them as threats.

Whether or not Catherine was cyberbullied a lot as a child (as director writer Kurtis David Harder continues shrouding Catherine’s true self and past in mystery), she sees them as her arch-nemeses. So, she manipulates, she lies, and she kills, regardless of the thought put behind it. Even worse, it’s not like she’s un-self-aware on some level. In manipulating her next target, Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), she basically reveals her entire nature when describing Madison: “You don’t understand this girl. She’s like a chameleon. One month, she pretends to be this small, innocent girl. Then she’s suddenly… different. She has this way of making you come to her. She finds exactly what you want, and plays right into it.” Whatever happened, it’s clear a past trauma has come to define, or at least aim, Catherine’s psychotic trajectory—a fate many other youngins experience to much milder degrees.

Conversely, Madison, after having had to survive weeks on a deserted island where she buried two past victims, personifies the way social media even villainizes victims. In a time where there are loads of YouTubers, Twitch streamers, TikTokers, and others who seek to “find the truth,” whatever that may mean for them, fact and fiction become easily blurred. While, legally, Madison is clear of any suspicion despite no proof of CW’s existence, she gets invited on a podcast to become an interrogation subject: “You did arrive on shore with two bodies, and there wasn’t any other stuff besides yours and theirs…. There was no proof that CW ever existed…. Yes, but since then [the court case], a lot more has come out, which has made things… complicated,” a white male podcaster warily inserts, suspicious of his star’s innocence.

Once the video booms, Madison discovers a terrible truth that Catherine perhaps already knew: social media is a landscape of bloodless rumor, where spreaders care only about how viral (and profitable!) their narrative is. As Catherine says in the original, “You all pretend to give a shit, but none of you actually care.” No one “actually cares” for Madison’s trauma beyond how it boosts them. Madison, probably to her disdain if she knew, is a reflection of Catherine: betrayed by the very system she once lived on and viewed as professionally cushioned, she must work harder than ever to find inner peace and reputational correction. The pair’s conflict is thus as explosively symbolic as it is intensely murderous, making for an intensely fun fuck you to social media. With a group of fake Tate-sters and dominating Republican poser girlfriends living vastly different but equally harmful lives from the ones they advertise, standing as the pair’s next supporting ensemble, Influencers‘ Catherine-Madison uptick is both satisfactory and further complicated.

While sludgy pacing can dampen intensity, dialogue can feel bland, and a deliberately unanswered burning question is more annoying than mysterious, Influencers is a sleek sequel. Stellar narrative upendings; effectively crazed, cocky, or angry performances; a lot of bloody slashes; and an AI girlfriend representative of the scary, near-limitless potential our real-world artificial intelligence systems now have all make Influencers indeed an influentially clever thriller that spills social media’s deepest issues. Horror and thriller fans alike should find much to post about, despite the film’s noticeable flaws.

It should also be clear to the greedy, ultra-right influential figures making millions throughout this country through theft and open criminality right now: you must know we all “see you” clear as day. Catherine’s rage is that of many of ours as you continue ripping this country’s very core apart, forgetting about the most vulnerable as you squeeze every drop of fatty power you can grasp. Influencers reminds us why change is necessary as much as the film excites.

Streaming on Shudder and AMC+ Friday, 12/12