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“This whole affair stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events 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 feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. 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 double standards, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.