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“Everything about this smells of a bad TV movie,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies 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 solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints 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 carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie 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 staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.