The Thriller Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Is Set to Give Other Streaming Suspense Films a Bad Case of FOMO

“Everything about this reeks like a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, 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 a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.