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“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of the 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

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film 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’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.