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“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident 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 ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.