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

“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.