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“The entire situation smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps 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 with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.