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“Everything about this stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders 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 proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While 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, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an 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, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.