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“The entire situation reeks like a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.