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“The entire situation reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill 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 visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big 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 particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.