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“Everything about this smells of a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up 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) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. 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 caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.