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“The entire situation smells like a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.