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“The entire situation stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. 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 the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, 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 getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.