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“This whole affair stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about 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 Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off 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, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.