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“This whole affair stinks like a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her version of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging 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 that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might 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 reality itself remains present, at least for now.