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“This whole affair stinks of a bad TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

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

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' chronological position. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over 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 part of a right-wing-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish for decades: Indeed, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems deeply filmic. It’s also particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool video. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. Though it is satisfying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt during ostensibly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he is acknowledging bits of contemporary digital culture 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 deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.