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“This whole affair stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

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

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, including the murder 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 power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward 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 fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous 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 original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.