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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.