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“This whole affair stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

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

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.