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“Everything about this smells of a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, 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 and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, 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 Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust 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 true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.