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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early 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 comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.