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

“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the 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) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director 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 attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows 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 experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.