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“Everything about this stinks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking 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), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo 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 immensely captivating in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison experienced while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.