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“The entire situation reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating stunning locations to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that remains even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting 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 other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek 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 pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.