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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) 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, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often 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 Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.