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“Everything about this smells of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing 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 grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.