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“This whole affair smells like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although 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 amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting 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 original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, 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 isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, 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 modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.