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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (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 most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action 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 degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.