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“The entire situation smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters 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 boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains 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 for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements 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 pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.