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“Everything about this stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences 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 for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity 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 other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.