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“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness 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 snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation 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 story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive 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 reality itself remains present, for now.