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“This whole affair reeks like a cheap made-for-TV,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a tawdry but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains just how superior it proves to be compared to much of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by taking control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, 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 to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see if they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing 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. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters suspicion regarding 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 juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform is bro-heavy streams, rather than the Instagram photos that normally capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in her role, which seems especially tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between the two women — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW employ fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for gaining access to luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors through her more blatant scamming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious in locating beautiful places to film, although they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the movie appears to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can show off large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off this much aerial pool video. The characters must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to highlight the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — even the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is relatively sympathetic to the key influencer figures. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim of it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it may occasionally seem that 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 plot, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title of Influencers could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the movie ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. However, initially, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but reality itself remains present, at least for now.