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“This whole affair smells like a bad TV movie,” observes an opportunistic commentator during the horror sequel Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his description of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of suspense film capable of giving its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, after her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers a degree of ambiguity, as returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to Diane that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices to see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in the part, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and a seemingly limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious about it. Most of the film 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 people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display a big budget, but just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a story so dependent on the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, appear to enjoy access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, far-flung locations to highlight the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to see CW manipulate different internet celebrities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, Harder is relatively sympathetic to the major influencer characters. Previously, he keyed into the isolation Madison experienced while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not a victim by it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn that lacks the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film might give fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society might be saturated with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.