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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

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 seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access 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 inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be 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 understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, 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 resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.