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“Everything about this smells like a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology to see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill 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, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity 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 other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at bits of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places might also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with always-online creators, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, at least for now.