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“The entire situation stinks like a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. 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 hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if 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 retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.