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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator midway through 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 assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. 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 avoids turning into a caricature 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 hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.