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“Everything about this reeks of a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.