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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” remarks a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to 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 ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.