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“Everything about this stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. 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 scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.