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“Everything about this reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks 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 seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer 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 given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn 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 movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.