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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 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 their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.