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“Everything about this reeks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere without any devices to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish 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 inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.