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“The entire situation smells of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more 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 killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other 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 especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.