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“The entire situation reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks 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 exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.