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“The entire situation stinks of a bad TV movie,” states a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way toward an interviewee whose outlandish story he previously said he trusted. Yet his assessment of the events on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars and then murders them feels like the 21st-century equivalent of a lurid but cable-ready Movie of the Week. The wild thing regarding Influencers remains how much better it is than plenty of the competition, irrespective of screen size. It’s the kind of thriller capable of giving other movies a bad case of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) as she methodically selects solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their doom, and covers up those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The film concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, when returning writer-director the director picks up with CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW’s eye and anger.

CW remarks to her partner that someone should try stranding a phone-addicted online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist after witnessing the preferential treatment afforded one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, now cleared of committing CW’s crimes, but still faces suspicion regarding her version of the events, which includes the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to juice his career as half of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), though his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly tailor-made to her strengths. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the sequel’s focus tips heavily toward CW — the first film felt more equally divided between her and Madison — it still functions as a story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to pursue and/or escape each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for getting to explore posh places without paying much, an ability that CW echoes with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers appear equally resourceful about finding beautiful places to visit, although they were likely less nefarious in their methods. Most of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at computer or phone screens.

It follows the same logic which allowed the Bond franchise appear so consistently opulent for decades: Yes, explosive action and visual effects can display large spending, but just providing a travelogue of sorts to viewers also seems deeply filmic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so dependent on the simultaneous superficial glamour and desperate hustle involved in producing jealousy-worthy online content.

All of the characters 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 overhead swimming-pool footage. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how often everyone — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their screens.

Balanced Depictions and Tech-Savvy Tension

At the same time, the director has not crafted a screed against the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit different internet celebrities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment allows us to wish she evades capture, Harder is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. Here, Harder seems to trust 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 gives Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his partner; he’s a hypocrite, but Ariana is a partner in his hypocrisy, not someone exploited of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he’s nodding at elements of contemporary digital culture without deeply exploring them further. This is particularly evident of the way he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film ultimately delivers exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. But before that, it’s more like a sleek Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world might be saturated with always-online creators, online fraud, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, for now.