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“The entire situation stinks of a bad TV movie,” states an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. But his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (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 against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first 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 influencer somewhere with no technology and see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her version of what happened, including the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. The characters must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.