This Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Competing Streaming Suspense Films Serious FOMO

“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this 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 early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.