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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.