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“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive 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, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile 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 Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.