This Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Competing Digital Suspense Films Serious FOMO

“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting 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 curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.