This Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Competing Streaming Suspense Films a Bad Case of FOMO

“The entire situation reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, 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. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.