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“This whole affair smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although 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 employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.