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“This whole affair stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were likely less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.