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“This whole affair smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, big action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry 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 inhabit these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development that lacks the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself remains present, for now.