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“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster 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. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos 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 striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.