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“This whole affair smells like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (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 provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope 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 experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.