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“This whole affair smells of a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting 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 flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.