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“The entire situation stinks like a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early ambiguity, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, which seems particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority 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 computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a partner 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 bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.