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“Everything about this smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, two streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

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

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile 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 typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing 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 collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.