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“This whole affair smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint 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, 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), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching 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 grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.