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“Everything about this stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture 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 eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.