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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand 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 yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the emptiness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.