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“The entire situation reeks like a bad TV movie,” remarks a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near 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 mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder picks up with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized after witnessing the special treatment afforded one fame-seeker?

Shifting Perspectives and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a right-wing-influencer power couple with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching wardrobe.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably less nefarious about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing envy-inducing digital content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy entry to impossibly chic contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how often each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem that he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society may be overrun with always-online creators, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.