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“Everything about this smells of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie 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 provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to 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, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.