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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (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 mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of 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 emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.