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“The entire situation reeks of a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of 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) while she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see whether they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent 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 inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.