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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers is just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone social media targets, lures them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This lends 2025's 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, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that normally attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward 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 fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters must believably inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to hope she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; 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 as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the movie does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.