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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up'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 dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters 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 large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of 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 online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.