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“The entire situation reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this 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 early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display 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 dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling 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, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.