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“The entire situation reeks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when 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 first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s 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 chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at 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 which misses the psychosexual kick 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 exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.