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“Everything about this smells of a bad made-for-TV,” observes a cynical commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. In the moment, he’s being manipulatively dismissive of a guest with an outlandish story he once claimed he believed. Yet his description of the events in the movie isn’t wrong. On its face, two films on demand chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of social media stars before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid but network-approved weekly TV movie. The wild thing about Influencers remains just how superior it is than plenty of its competition, regardless of screen size. It is precisely the thriller that should give its peers a bad case of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

2022’s Influencer tracks the enigmatic CW (Cassandra Naud) while she quietly chooses solo-traveling social media targets, entices them to their doom, and conceals those murders (at least temporarily) by seizing control of their socials. The movie leaves off (spoiler ahead) with CW marooned on an uninhabited island near the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles on her.

This lends the 2025 Influencers some early mystery, when returning filmmaker the director resumes with the character CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey to celebrate the couple’s first anniversary, British influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) draws CW's attention and anger.

CW remarks to Diane that a person should try stranding a device-obsessed influencer in a place without any devices and see whether they can survive. Is this an origin-story prequel? Did CW become extremist by seeing the special treatment given to one fame-seeker?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The narrative viewpoint shifts several more times, ultimately revealing those early scenes’ place in the timeline. Harder catches up with Madison, who has been cleared of carrying out CW's offenses, but still faces suspicion over her recounting of what happened, including the killing of Madison’s boyfriend. We also follow Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali and trying to juice his career as part of a right-wing-influencer duo alongside Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium is bro-heavy streams, rather than the curated images that typically attract CW's interest.

Naud remains immensely captivating in her role, a role that appears particularly tailor-made for her talents. (She also designed CW's striking wardrobe.) 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 story of rival amateur detectives, as Madison and CW both use fabricated profiles, Insta-stalking, and an apparently limitless travel fund to chase or evade one another. Then again, perhaps the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for gaining access to posh places at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scheming.

Ingenious Filmmaking and Cinematic Travelogue

The creative team for Influencers seem similarly ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate about it. Most of the movie seems to be shot on location, providing it a real-world weight that lingers even as numerous sequences consist of a handful of actors of people looking at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the James Bond movies appear so consistently opulent over the years: Yes, explosive action and special effects can show off a big budget, however just providing a travelogue of sorts for the audience also seems inherently cinematic. This is particularly appropriate for a narrative so rooted in the simultaneous surface-level allure and desperate hustle of creating jealousy-worthy online content.

Every character visiting Bali, similar to those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to unbelievably stylish modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers that don’t show off as much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these luxurious, remote places to emphasize the uncomfortable paradox of how frequently each person — including the woman wreaking vengeance upon the online stars' self-centered phoniness — nonetheless devotes much time in the glow of their screens.

Nuanced Portrayals and Tech-Savvy Tension

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant against the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW exploit various online personalities, and a sense reminiscent of Hitchcock of alignment lets us to hope she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat sympathetic to the major influencer characters. In the first movie, he tapped into the isolation Madison felt while on ostensibly dream getaways. Here, the director appears confident that merely watching Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other doofuses; he avoids turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a measure of dignity through depicting his true devotion to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a partner in his double standards, not a victim of it.

The flip side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it can sometimes appear as if he’s nodding at bits of modern online life without investigating them further. This is particularly evident regarding how he brings AI into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title for the film could offer fans of the first movie hope for a larger-scale escalation, and the film does eventually provide that, with a suitably chaotic climax. But before that, it’s more like a polished Hitchcock thriller than an wild-eyed, tech-addled Brian De Palma thriller. Influencers’ extensive use of actual places may also be what keeps it from coming across like utter horror. Our society might be saturated with always-online creators, digital deception, and exploitative travel, but the world itself is still here, at least for now.