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“This whole affair smells of a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.