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“This whole affair smells of a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.