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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow 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, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in 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 that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably 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’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.