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“Everything about this reeks like a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (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 functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil 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 girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.