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“Everything about this stinks of a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as 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 socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend 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 remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract 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.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works 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 unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps 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.