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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) 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), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single 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 exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.