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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two films on demand about a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.