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“Everything about this smells like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with the character 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) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions 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 one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.