The Horror Follow-Up <em>Influencers</em> Could Give Other Digital Suspense Films Serious FOMO

“Everything about this reeks of a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack 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 film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. 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. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.