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“The entire situation reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. 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 against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.