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“The entire situation smells of a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, 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 off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants 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 someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.