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“Everything about this smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously 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 insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its 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 Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.