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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) 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 tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.