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“This whole affair stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

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

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to film, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.