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“The entire situation smells of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up 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 Diane that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase or evade each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will reveal that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true regarding how 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 an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.