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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special 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. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority 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 looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.