The Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Competing Digital Thrillers a Bad Case of FOMO

“The entire situation stinks of a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies 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, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.