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“This whole affair stinks of a cheap TV movie,” observes a cynical podcaster midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest whose outlandish story he once said he trusted. But his assessment of the events in the movie isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains how much better it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It’s the kind of thriller that should give other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, lures them to their deaths, and covers up those murders (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers some early ambiguity, as returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living alongside her partner Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and ire.

CW comments to Diane that someone should try leaving a phone-addicted online personality in a place without any devices and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' 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, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as part of a conservative-influencer power couple alongside 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 tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking wardrobe.) Although the follow-up's screentime balance tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a story of rival amateur detectives, with both women both use fake accounts, Insta-stalking, and a seemingly unlimited travel budget to chase and/or escape one another. Of course, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, a skill which CW mirrors with her more overt 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. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even when many scenes consist of a relatively small cast of people looking at computer or phone screens.

It’s the same principle that made the Bond franchise look so consistently opulent over the years: Indeed, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts to viewers also feels inherently cinematic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

All of the characters visiting Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish contemporary villas; films exist about lifeguards which don't feature this much overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals have to convincingly occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge upon the online stars' narcissistic falseness — nevertheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a screed targeting the vacuousness of online fame. Though it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that just observing Jacob in action will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of this balanced approach is that it can sometimes appear that he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is particularly evident of the way he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably chaotic climax. However, initially, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but reality itself is still here, at least for now.