The Thriller Sequel <em>Influencers</em> Will Give Competing Streaming Suspense Films a Bad Case of FOMO

“This whole affair reeks like a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (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, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living 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 eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.