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“This whole affair smells like a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited 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 story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.