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“Everything about this stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

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 murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) 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 dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.