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“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states 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 claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding 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 conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, big action and special effects can display a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching 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’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.