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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (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 against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more 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 recounting of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale 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 unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.