The Horror Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Competing Streaming Thrillers Serious FOMO

“The entire situation smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.