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“This whole affair smells like a cheap TV movie,” states a cynical podcaster during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive toward an interviewee with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening in the movie isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of films on demand about a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of its competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker Kurtis David Harder picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone ought to attempt leaving a device-obsessed 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 preferential treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for carrying out CW’s crimes, but still faces doubt regarding her recounting of what happened, including the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform involves masculine-focused livestreams, rather than the curated images that typically capture CW’s attention.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears especially custom-fit to her strengths. (She also designed CW's striking outfits.) While the sequel’s screentime balance leans heavily into CW — the first film seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still functions as a tale of dueling investigators, as Madison and CW employ fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Visual Wanderlust

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were presumably more legitimate about it. The vast majority of the film seems to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that remains even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise appear so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off large spending, however simply offering a kind of visual tour to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting surface-level allure and try-hard grind of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters in Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist about lifeguards that don’t show off as much aerial pool footage. These individuals must believably inhabit these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often each person — even the woman wreaking vengeance on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a rant against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it is satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling snake-oil masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not someone exploited by it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them. This is particularly evident regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The retitled sequel of Influencers could offer fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from seeming like utter horror. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.