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“This whole affair reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the film seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.