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“The entire situation stinks of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give 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 methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.