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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the murder of her 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), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.