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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film 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 provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels 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.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.