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“This whole affair stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey 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 a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales 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 resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.