This Horror Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Is Set to Give Competing Digital Thrillers Serious FOMO

“This whole affair reeks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital 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; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. 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 a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.