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“This whole affair smells like a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the lives 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 regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those deaths (at least temporarily) by taking control of their online accounts. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director picks up with CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that someone ought to attempt stranding a phone-addicted influencer somewhere with no technology and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt regarding her version of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between the two women — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, though they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the movie appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even when many scenes consist of a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature as much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — including the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it deserves. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.