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“The entire situation reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, including the killing 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 duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.