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“The entire situation smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains 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 consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.