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“This whole affair stinks of a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.