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“This whole affair stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess 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 creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.