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“The entire situation smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.