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“Everything about this reeks of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready 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 is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.