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“The entire situation reeks like a cheap TV movie,” observes an opportunistic podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an bizarre tale he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their online accounts. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW contentedly residing alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the special treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW's offenses, but still faces doubt regarding her version of what happened, including 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 chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival investigators, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to pursue and/or escape each other. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors through her more blatant scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers seem similarly resourceful in locating stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when numerous sequences consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent for decades: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a kind of visual tour for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, similar to those who were in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. The characters have to convincingly inhabit these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the emptiness of online fame. While it can be satisfying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists caricaturing the character. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if 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 plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The retitled sequel for the film might give fans of the first movie expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, for now.