This Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Competing Streaming Thrillers Serious FOMO

“This whole affair reeks like a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker 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 anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.