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“Everything about this reeks like a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.