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“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust 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 further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.