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“Everything about this smells like a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets 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 isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations 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 the world itself remains present, for now.