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“This whole affair reeks like a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film seems to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off large spending, but just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might 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 the world itself is still here, for now.