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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (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, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (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 works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of online fame. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.