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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil 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 partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.