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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of 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: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.