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“The entire situation smells like a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (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 functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly 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. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.