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“This whole affair stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing 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 follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; 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, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.