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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.