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“This whole affair reeks of a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish 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 feels deeply filmic. This is 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 in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during 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 doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.