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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives of online influencers before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director picks up with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) While the sequel’s focus leans heavily into CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even when numerous sequences involve a relatively small cast of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can display large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced during supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The other side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, for now.