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“The entire situation reeks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (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, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring 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 display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems 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.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.