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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. 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 shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows 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 experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.