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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an 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. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.