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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

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

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

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective 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 over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, 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 exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.