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“This whole affair smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies 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, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.