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“The entire situation smells of a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of people staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.