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“This whole affair stinks like a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest 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 chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (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 on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give 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 an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.