The Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Is Set to Give Competing Streaming Thrillers a Bad Case of FOMO

“This whole affair stinks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory 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, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

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 eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.