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“Everything about this stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. 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’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, 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 further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.