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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned 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 mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract 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 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 tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.