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“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (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), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows 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 preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner 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 bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.