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“The entire situation smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects 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 movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

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

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking 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 tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.