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“Everything about this stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, 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. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.