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“Everything about this stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist 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 introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.