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

“Everything about this smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring 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 display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, 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 in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.