This Thriller Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Other Streaming Thrillers Serious FOMO

“Everything about this stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.