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“The entire situation smells like a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing 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 flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.