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“This whole affair smells like a cheap made-for-TV,” observes an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it proves to be compared to much of the competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the First Film and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer tracks the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. 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), turns the tables on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist 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’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the curated images that normally capture CW's interest.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original seemed more balanced between the two women — it still works as a story of dueling investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget aren't needed. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Visual Wanderlust

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the movie seems to be filmed in real places, giving it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences involve a handful of actors of people staring at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Indeed, explosive action and visual effects can show off a big budget, however simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure 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 access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, far-flung locations to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will reveal that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other doofuses; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of modern online life without investigating them further. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, an intriguing development that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.