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“Everything about this stinks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.