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“This whole affair smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, 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 grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.