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“The entire situation smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch 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. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.