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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the 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 solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore 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 resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.