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“The entire situation smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, a pair of films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of social media stars and then murders them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing 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 capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt over her version of what happened, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women employ fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that remains even when numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it can be gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.