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“This whole affair smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue 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, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.