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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.