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“The entire situation reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (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 on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, 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 their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. 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 always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.