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“The entire situation smells of a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.