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“Everything about this smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it is gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.