This Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Other Digital Thrillers Serious FOMO

“The entire situation reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.