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“This whole affair stinks like a bad TV movie,” remarks an opportunistic commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to Diane that a person ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer in a place with no technology to see if they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, with both women employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to film, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes involve a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what prevents it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.