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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a 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 network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.