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“This whole affair stinks of a bad TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) 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), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner 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 a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, though 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 many scenes 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 appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, 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, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.