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“The entire situation stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty 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 Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story 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; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.