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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

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

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

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, 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 an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.