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“This whole affair stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.