This Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Other Digital Thrillers Serious FOMO

“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited 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 ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

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 committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at 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 psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.