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“This whole affair smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.