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“Everything about this reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.