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“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting 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, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but 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. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.