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

“Everything about this reeks like a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with 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 her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.