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“Everything about this reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.