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“Everything about this reeks of a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, for now.