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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being 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 inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling 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 yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust 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 grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating 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 retitled sequel for the film might give 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. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.