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“This whole affair smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks 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 given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give 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. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.