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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, 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 that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.