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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.