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“Everything about this reeks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling 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 network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.