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“This whole affair smells of a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker 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 comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. While it is 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 somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.