The Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Other Digital Thrillers a Bad Case of FOMO

“Everything about this stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

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

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.