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“Everything about this stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (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 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants 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 someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.