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

“Everything about this smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across 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.