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“Everything about this stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded 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 mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.