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

“The entire situation reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the 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) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.