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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.