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“The entire situation stinks of a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film 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 conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium 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 custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.