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“This whole affair smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted 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 mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false 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 partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.