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“The entire situation stinks like a bad TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.