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“The entire situation stinks like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest whose bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the lives of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers is how much better it is than plenty of the competition, regardless of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (for a time) by seizing control of their online accounts. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, after her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This provides the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that a person ought to attempt stranding a device-obsessed online personality somewhere without any devices to see whether they can make it. Is this a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters doubt over her version of the events, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the Instagram photos that typically attract CW’s attention.

The actor continues to be terrifically magnetic in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the original 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 unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, perhaps the vast resources isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding stunning locations to visit, although they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. The vast majority of the movie seems to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people staring at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, appear to enjoy access to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off this much aerial pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uneasy irony of how often everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the emptiness of online fame. Though it is gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of identification allows us to hope she evades capture, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character. He even gives Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited by it.

The flip side of this balanced approach means it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, a fascinating turn which misses the psychological edge it should have. The retitled sequel for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately chaotic climax. But before that, it resembles more a polished Alfred Hitchcock movie than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like utter horror. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.