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“The entire situation smells like a bad TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.