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“Everything about this stinks of a cheap TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (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 provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner 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 someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that typically 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 even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though 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, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.