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“This whole affair smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who insinuates herself 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 regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s 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 involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’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 amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring 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 retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.