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“Everything about this stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids 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, yet Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.