The Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Other Streaming Thrillers a Bad Case of FOMO

“This whole affair reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices 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 clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.