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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is compared to much of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give 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 solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted 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 mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her version of what happened, including 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 duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, big action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.