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“The entire situation stinks of a bad made-for-TV,” states an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he previously claimed he believed. Yet his assessment of what’s happening on screen isn’t wrong. Superficially, a pair of streaming movies about a young woman who worms her way into the lives of social media stars before killing them seems like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid yet network-approved weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers is just how superior it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It is precisely the suspense film capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Setting the Stage

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses traveling alone influencer targets, entices them to their deaths, and conceals those deaths (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This provides 2025's Influencers a degree of mystery, when returning writer-director the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW remarks to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see whether they can survive. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the preferential treatment afforded a single clout-chaser?

Shifting Perspectives and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion regarding her recounting of what happened, which includes the murder of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), living in Bali attempting to boost his profile as half of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's eye-catching outfits.) While the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a talent for getting to explore posh places at little cost, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to film, though they were likely more legitimate in their methods. Most of the film appears to be shot on location, giving it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It follows the same logic that made the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can display large spending, but simply offering a kind of visual tour for the audience also feels deeply filmic. This is especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and try-hard grind of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, like those who were in Thailand in the original, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards which don't feature this much aerial pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to highlight the uneasy irony of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless spends plenty of time under the light of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a screed against the vacuousness of the influencer industry. While it can be satisfying to watch CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. Previously, he tapped into the isolation Madison experienced during supposedly envy-worthy vacations. Here, Harder seems to trust that merely watching Jacob in action will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other gullible men; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect by showing his true devotion to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them. This is especially true of the way he brings AI into the story, a fascinating turn which misses the psychosexual kick it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give devotees of the original expectations of an Aliens-style ante-upping, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an frenzied, tech-addled De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ extensive use of real-world locations 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 self-serving tourism, but the world itself remains present, for now.