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“Everything about this stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes 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 ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.