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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life 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 retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.