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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

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.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. 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' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.