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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen 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 before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film 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, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.