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“This whole affair reeks of a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.