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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices 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, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of 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 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 exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.