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“This whole affair stinks like a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator 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. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (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, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes 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 ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.