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“This whole affair stinks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although 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 amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.