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

“The entire situation smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced 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 chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.