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“The entire situation stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. 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 lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.