The Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Is Set to Give Other Streaming Suspense Films Serious FOMO

“The entire situation reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective 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

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded 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 filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out 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), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.