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“Everything about this smells of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting 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 impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless 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 against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.