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“This whole affair reeks of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects 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 film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, including the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales 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 film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob in action 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 measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the movie ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.