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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.