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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, 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 also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.