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“This whole affair stinks like a cheap made-for-TV,” remarks a cynical commentator during the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he once said he trusted. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. Superficially, two streaming movies about a woman who insinuates herself into the worlds of online influencers and then murders them seems like a modern-day version of a tawdry yet cable-ready weekly TV movie. The surprising aspect about Influencers remains how much better it proves to be than plenty of the competition, irrespective of where you watch it. It is precisely the suspense film that should give its peers a serious bout of FOMO.

Revisiting the First Film and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she methodically selects traveling alone social media targets, entices them to their deaths, and covers up those deaths (for a time) by taking control of their online accounts. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island near the coast of Thailand, following her latest target, Madison (Emily Tennant), turns the tables against her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers a degree of ambiguity, when returning writer-director Kurtis David Harder resumes with the character CW contentedly residing with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. During a trip to celebrate their one-year anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW's attention and anger.

CW comments to her partner that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed online personality in a place with no technology and see if they can make it. Are we witnessing a backstory prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to a single clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and International Chases

The narrative viewpoint changes multiple times, eventually clarifying those early scenes’ chronological position. The story revisits Madison, who has been cleared of committing CW’s crimes, yet still encounters doubt regarding her recounting of the events, which includes the killing of her boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), though his chosen platform 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 custom-fit for her talents. (She also designed CW's eye-catching outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original seemed more balanced between her and Madison — it still works as a tale of rival investigators, with both women both use fake accounts, social media surveillance, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase and/or escape each other. Then again, perhaps the unlimited budget isn’t necessary. Influencers have a knack for gaining access to luxurious locales without paying much, a skill that CW echoes with her more overt scheming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally resourceful in locating stunning locations to film, though they were presumably less nefarious in their methods. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it an authentic gravity that lingers even as many scenes involve a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle that made the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, big action and special effects can show off large spending, however just providing a kind of visual tour to viewers also seems deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing online content.

Every character in Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have access to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; there are movies about lifeguards that don’t show off as much overhead swimming-pool video. The characters have to convincingly occupy these lush, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently everyone — including the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ narcissistic falseness — nonetheless devotes much time under the light of their devices.

Balanced Depictions and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, the director has not crafted a rant targeting the emptiness of the influencer industry. While it can be gratifying to watch CW exploit various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of alignment lets us to wish she evades capture, Harder is relatively understanding of the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he keyed into the loneliness Madison felt while on supposedly dream getaways. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he is selling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids caricaturing the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity by showing his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, but Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation means it can sometimes appear that he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the story, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it deserves. The pluralized title for the film could offer devotees of the original hope for an Aliens-style escalation, and the film does eventually provide exactly that, with an appropriately wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Alfred Hitchcock movie than a wild-eyed, technology-obsessed Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ heavy use of real-world locations may also be what prevents it from coming across like pure nightmare fuel. Our society may be overrun with content-churning influencers, digital deception, and self-serving tourism, but the world itself is still here, for now.