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“The entire situation smells of a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.