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“Everything about this stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets 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 envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim 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 deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.