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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) 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 the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.