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“This whole affair reeks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.